Alias
by DiamondCompass
Summary: Sky, ever since she escaped from Deepsea Metro, had tried to live a quiet life. She'd cut all ties with the New Squidbeak Splatoon and avoided anything that might draw attention. But because of the battle at Sharktown, she and Marina weren't the only Octolings on the surface. She timidly stepped into Deca Tower, and a chance encounter with another thrust her back into her past.
1. Summary of The Agents of Inkopolis

**DO NOT SCROLL DOWN YET READ THIS**

**So, returning readers, I'm back! I actually wrote this after the prologue and the first chapter, so I can say that I really prefer first person.**

**And to new readers, this particular story takes place after another which I have up. There's a shortened summary of its plot below, but if you'd rather read it in its entirety, go ahead. The periods separating everything are there because spoilers, of course. The first five chapters or so aren't that great, but it gets better afterwards.**

**And now, the obligatory "I don't own Splatoon, credit to OG makers" and spoiler warning for Splatoon 1, 2 and Octo Expansion.**

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Two days after Callie's rescue from DJ Octavio, Rose, or Agent 4, was called to Octo Canyon by Cap'n Cuttlefish with Agents 1 and 2. He revealed that his long disappearance was due to an underground investigation of Grizzco. He, along with Agent 3, discovered that it was run by Octarians, but since Agent 3 was captured, the remaining three Agents entered Grizzco to find more information.

Mr. Grizz recognized Agents 1 and 2, so he sent the boat to a desolate area where no Salmon Run took place. The three took over the boat before it could return and found two documents inside. One revealed a name: Akash Octrope. It also detailed how Golden Eggs could be converted to electricity and how Grizzco's purpose was to collect the power and take over Inkopolis.

The other, however, was coded.

Callie's faint memories of getting captured herself led the three to the Lab, an Octarian facility in the middle of Inkopolis.

From what they gathered from the area, they could decode any coded documents and found more details of Agent 3's kidnapping. Octavio was the one who ordered it, but a last-minute decision gave Callie the Hypno-Shades instead of him because of morale reasons. Akash used this to his advantage and used Agent 3 to form Grizzco as a stand-in.

Left with no other leads, Cap'n Cuttlefish suggested they explore Octo Valley. It hadn't been touched in a while — the entrance from Inkopolis was sealed.

Sheldon drove the flying truck assisted with Octocopter helmets. It was filled with each of the Hero Weapons as backup, but the Dualies for Agent 4, Roller for Agent 1, and the Charger for Agent 2 were all kept.

After a fight with a group of flying Octarians, a caw was heard in the distance. A giant, mechanical bird was flying directly at them. It had glowing orange spots at the joints, which could be shot to break them off of the main body.

They managed to break off a leg before Sheldon's made a last-ditch effort as the truck was about to run out of fuel. He reached Octo Valley, and the bird flew away.

However, before it soared away, Agent 2 grabbed on to it and waited in its main hull for it to land somewhere.

Agents 1 and 4, no matter how distraught, still pressed on. They found another kettle, and inside was yet another document. Upon exiting, they found that the Lab could be explored further. Problem was, they were surrounded by Octarians and Octolings, all preparing to shoot.

The UFO from Octo Valley came flying down holding a cloaked figure standing on top of it. He spoke a few words of triumph, and the two realized that's his voice was the same one as Mr. Grizz. It was Akash.

After he flew off, the group surrounding them prepared to fire, but was promptly cut off by the same metal bird that attacked them earlier. Agent 2 stole it and was piloting the Eagle with a newly repaired leg. She brought the other two Agents and Sheldon, who was hiding nearby, back to Tentakeel Outpost. Since the truck was gone, all of their weapons other than the three they kept were gone.

The Eagle was kept there.

The next day, the three again invaded the lab. They found another portion that went even deeper underground. Upon finding an arena-like platform, another huge mechanical machine fell from above. This one was in the shape of an Inkling.

It turned around, and they found Agent 3 in the head of the vehicle, wearing the very same pair of Hypno-Shades that Callie wore.

He was holding a weapon they had never seen before. It was called an Inkwhip, a ten-foot long, thin stream of ink that could pass through anything and instantly splatted or shattered an armor piece of an enemy.

Whenever he did something in the machine's head, it would follow, meaning it also had a terrifyingly massive Inkwhip of its own.

The Agents did the same thing they did with the Eagle: attack the obvious glowing orange spots. They stripped the machine of its limbs bottom-up, and once only the head was left, the wall opened and it flew through.

As they gave pursuit, they found themselves in another, smaller room. The head sputtered out of fuel and came crashing down.

Agent 3 fell and broke the Shades, but also fell unconscious. Agent 2 carried him.

The next room held several Inkling prisoners. With the push of a button, they were freed, but it also set off an alarm.

They escaped with all of the prisoners, but Agent 4 recognized one of them. Her name was Morgan, a childhood friend of hers. She interrogated her, finding that she, along with the rest of the prisoners, were researched to develop a pair of Hypno-Shades that could function perfectly on either an Inkling or an Octoling. So far, they have been developed seperately, but their mechanics have never been combined.

Simon, or Agent 3, woke up in Callie's room. After a little bit of updating, he decided to go out. Rose and Morgan were also in the area, and they found each other. Simon and Morgan recognized each other as siblings.

Later that night, Rose's mother called her, worried after hearing the news of kidnapped Inklings. Rose explained to her her position in the New Squidbeak Splatoon, then heard news of ships disappearing at sea.

Once again, they had to find more on Grizzco, but none of them could do so much as walk in without security going off.

They recruited Sid, a former staff member that worked backstage during concerts for the Squid Sisters. He was found, caught, and taken deeper into Grizzco.

The Agents gave chase and split into pairs. Agents 1 and 3 found Sid and escaped from the facility.

Agents 2 and 4 found the same place where Agent 2 stole the Eagle, and Agent 4 found a paper detailing how Octarians had access to Salmonid coolers.

They also found the Hero Splatling in the barracks.

They couldn't turn back, so they rushed through a forest separating the camp and Inkopolis. Within the trees, a three-tentacled Octarian attacked them. Since it was immune to ink, they could only run. Fortunately, it refused to go further when in the sunlight.

When's questioning Octavio for any more information, he said that the three tentacles they found probably once belonged to Akash, but were cut off and never grew back due to a failed experiment.

Without anything happening, Rose tried something in the training room of Ammo Knights. She knew that dodge-rolling with the Dualies midair caused falling much quicker than normal, so she tried it in conjunction with a Splashdown.

A torrent of Ink surrounded her, and once it cleared,the whole room was covered other than the section protected with a wall. She showed Simon the technique, then they recieved a message from Cap'n Cuttlefish. Octo Valley and Tentakeel Outpost were taken over as well.

Callie was stuck in a meeting, so she couldn't come.

They used the other flying truck to get there since they didn't have access to the Eagle. Once again, Sheldon drove it.

Rose used her newly-discovered Splashdown to clear the area, then Octavio, who was previously imprisoned there, appeared manning the original Octobot King.

Agent 2 piloted the Eagle, but neither machine could even scratch the other. The Octobot King had a barrier protecting Octavio, but the punches it threw were badly aimed, as if he didn't want to fight.

After a time, a timer counting down appeared on the Octobot King's top. Octavio suddenly stopped fighting; he said it was a bomb and told them to leave, but a ring of ink spraying down appeared, entirely isolating the Outpost.

The Agents helped Octavio escape the Octobot King, and they all sped out of the Outpost on the Eagle while protecting the its weak points.

Tentakeel Outpost blew up. A rod from the explosion nearly impaled Agent 3, but it was stopped by the wooden shield he was holding to protect the glowing orange joint. He pulled it out and discovered it was the Hero Brella, giving them five out of the nine weapons. Without any other place to keep the Eagle, Agent 2 landed in a small clearing of the forest. Before they returned to Inkopolis, they forced Octavio to change to his humanoid form to not rouse any suspicion.

He had to be watched, so they took him to Cap'n Cuttlefish's house in the suburbs. For one night, he was kept in the basement, but the next morning, he escaped.

One lead was left: the disappearing ships near the Restricted Zone. Rose's father was going to travel near the area by boat, so the Agents took the Eagle and used it to search for anything.

When the boat was close to the area, a third giant metal beast surfaced. This one was of a fish. Agent 2 picked up the small boat with the Eagle's talons while the rest entered the fish through its mouth. Inside, there were three of Akash's own children's waiting to fight them. The one that seemed like the leader was named Eileen.

In the end, the Agents succeeded, and they took their weapons. They got the Hero Shot, Brush, and Blaster back. In addition, Rose figured out how to control the Piranha, which was what the giant fish was called, since it's controls were intuitive and suspiciously easy to master.

A few days after, Callie and Marie took a brief walk in a quiet area. They heard noises coming from an alley. Sid was unconscious on the ground while two hypnotized Octolings stood over him.

Octavio had explained earlier that The shades were mostly for identity-protection for the soldiers, but Akash and activated all of them, meaning the entire Octarian race was under his command.

Callie and Marie removed the shades on the pair, knocking them out, and took them all to Cap'n Cuttlefish's house. They theorized that Sid specifically was targeted because of his recent affiliations with the NSS.

Rose and Simon joined them, and Rose gave Sid the Hero Brush so he could stand a chance against any more attackers. Once he left and the soldiers woke up, one reluctantly explained how Akash originally tried to use a speech to win over the Octolings, but once that failed, he used the Hypno-Shades.

Afterwards, they bolted for the door.

The four Agents of the NSS went to an underwater facility that they found from a paper in the camp past the forest. Agent 4 drove the Piranha, but it almost drove itself. They found the facility and infiltrated it. Inside was the three-tentacled Octarian that lingered in the forest. They lured it to the moon pool the Piranha was docked in, and Agent 3 pushed it into the water.

Once they went deeper inside the construction, Akash appeared from above, but he looked taller than usual. Finally, he cast off his purple cloak, revealing his new robotic legs and arm.

The lights cut out, and he forced a pair of Hypno-Shades on each of them.

They all blacked out, but there was one last hope.

Octavio had a group of free Octolings wearing fake Hypno-Shades called the OATH, or Octarians Againt Tyranny and Hatred. It was centered in the Sky Base, an airborne Octarian construction suspended over the ocean that served as the center of the race. The Sky Base was largely run by Akash at this point, but a series of secret rooms was where the OATH operated.

Octavio heard news of an attack on Inkopolis and rushed out. He found Callie, ripped the Shades off her head, and returned to the Sky Base via a Kettle in the forest.

Callie woke up and remembered everything she saw as Octavio carried her to where she was. She saw a plethora of Inkwhip and exact replicas of every Hero Weapon except for Rollers, Chargers, and Dualies. She dropped hers, so that one could be copied too. She saw hundreds of Inkopolis citizens being hypnotized, but she was too exhausted to get up.

Later, with Octavio, Callie reluctantly agreed to search for the other three Agents. She was given the original Hero Slosher.

Simon, or Agent 3, was in the Restricted Zone farming Salmonid eggs. Using a boat, she and a group of OATH members swept in and rescued the ones there.

Marie was deep into the Sky Base. Callie and Simon infiltrated it and found Marie, alone in the dark. Her Charger was nowhere nearby, so it was probably being replicated as well.

Rose was in Inkopolis rounding up the stragglers left in the city. She and a group of ten were ambushed by Callie, Simon, Marie, and Barry, one of the Octolings that unknowingly attacked Simon in an alley.

When they were all free, the four Agents received a message from Cap'n Cuttlefish telling them to return to the original Ammo Knights in Inkopolis Plaza. There was a hidden basement where Cap'n Cuttlefish, Sheldon, Pearl, and Marina all hid.

When leaving the basement, Barry round them and told them of a training camp to resist Akash underneath Inkopolis Plaza. Not many were there due to the inability to broadcast a wide message anywhere, so they had to clear the city of any remaining soldiers. Marie, Rose, and Barry we're preparing to clear one of the ten clumps of soldiers, but Sid ran in from one side, ready to attack.

Then Rose stopped him. They couldn't splat them, or they would just notify Akash. Their plan was to break the shades and leave them on the ground where the ten were standing because each had a tracking mechanism built in to them.

The group was rescued, and one of the soldiers was Morgan, Simon's sister.

Once the rest were off the map, Marina broadcasted a message to every radio and screen possible, telling anyone left that Inkopolis Square was a rendezvous point.

Several hundred more found the training camp that night.

Rose and Pearl led the Dualie division, the most important because of a simple reason: Skydive. Rose noticed a suspicious character in the division. She called herself Sky, and was, according to the OATH, a master of every weapon class.

After weeks of training, Eileen appeared again with her two brothers. They blocked the enterance to the training camp, so Callie and Simon had to fend them off on their own.

Since they knew where they were now, they had to retaliate now. Sky, who had left just to admire the scenery nearby, saw, in the distance, a last metal beast.

It was called the Widow, and it was a huge spider-like creature the drilled a hole up from below.

Now in a panic, the entire training camp was evacuated and sent to a bullet train farther in the city. Clouds were also coming in, signaling a storm's arrival. Rose, Marie, and Sky fended off the Widow for a short time, but it quickly turned into a chase with the three running from it. Sky's super jumped and landed on top of it, searching for a weakness. She broke through a thin metal sheet near the top with her heel, but then she was thrown off.

Once the three reached the train station, the rain started pouring. The Widow nearly impaled the caboose with one of its sharp legs, but the hole Sky made in the top let water in to short-circuit it.

The bullet train was going to Sharktown, Simon and Morgan's hometown to the south. They set up camp for an attack, then Skydive proved extremely useful. The one advantage that the OATH army had was the ability to respawn, since Simon found a way to cut them off from returning to the battlefield and instead be stuck where they respawned.

The Eagle appeared again, screeching loudly and quickly turning the tides of battle. Marie, holding the completed Rainmaker prototype that Rose used against Octavio, set up a diversion for it to fly over the nearby drawbridge crossing a bay. She shot off one of its wings and weakened the other. She super jumped across the entire bay, and, at the height of her jump, flung the Rainmaker down, using its explosion to force the Eagle and its remains into the bay.

The army started to jump away, but Rose stopped Akash's pedestal, the same arena on which she fought Octavio, with a Skydive. The four Agents stood on it, but Akash then prevented anyone else from following,

Akash started to use the same trick he did underwater, but in broad daylight, they could react, break off his arm,and force him to the center. Using four more mechanical arms, he kept them away using his personal Grizzco weapons. Marie shot of one, then he protected the rest. Rose charged a Skydive and rose up, but Akash then rose up himself using some thrusters on his arms. He grabbed Rose out of the air, then she threw her Dualies down.

Callie got them and jumped up, right above Akash. Rose held on to one of his arms, Simon to another, and Marie butting one back.

Callie came hurling downwards with a twister of swirling color enveloping her.

Akash had no more limbs left except for his real arm. The last thing he said was a name. "Annabelle." It was his fourth child, missing for some unknown reason. Octavio killed him with a burst of electricity to the neck, then ground the murder weapon into the pavement. He ran off holding Akash's body.

The four flew back to Inkopolis on the now-controllable floating platform. Since then, nobody has found them.

Octavio's octopus and humanoid forms are like separate entities. Nobody except for Sky, Barry, and the NSS know that it was him who carried off the body.

Marina disabled the Hypno-Shades and explained to Inkopolis' denizens what happened.

Octavio agreed to merge the underground with Inkopolis, but he was in his octopus form, so nobody recognized him as the old man who left with Akash.

A new age dawned for Inkopolis.

* * *

**Whew, that was long, wasn't it? That one summary was longer than any one of the chapters in the last story. Sheesh.**


	2. Prologue

When I first awoke in Deepsea metro six months ago, it took me about three seconds to realize that something was wrong with my memory.

Through some advanced method, it seemed to be erased.

Despite that, many things still had a sense of familiarity to it. I knew that I wasn't somewhere that I recognized, and I knew that the man nearly drooling in my face was the enemy, of, well, something.

However, he spared me, as I was unarmed, and neither of us knew the way out of there. Over time, we found a sort of mutual respect.

But as I stood up, I noticed I was, undoubtedly, a girl. The realization shocked me; not the content of the realization, but more the fact that I needed to rediscover my own gender. This memory loss has proven to be a huge hassle, as it seemed to affect my perception of myself more than anything else. I didn't even know what I looked like until I found a shard of a broken mirror.

Yep. Girl. Light blue eyes. Sixteen, maybe? Also my hair was long. Did I let that happen, or was I just unconscious for a really long time? The practical thing to do was to tie it up, but I preferred it that way, so I let it flow. I dropped the shard and tried to remember something.

I could remember what things were. That was a vending machine. A traffic cone. Lights. I could remember what they were used for, their names, I could describe them. But I couldn't remember the names of anyone or anywhere.

Proper nouns, that's it. I couldn't remember any proper nouns.

Cap'n Cuttlefish called me "Agent 8." An odd choice, but i didn't care. Despite the title, I was never actually a part of the New Squidbeak Splatoon.

Then came the challenges. I breezed through them. The little eraser things I got from each one let me remember random pieces of information.

Which led me to believe that this memory loss was more of a memory suppression. It was all locked away in a corner of my mind.

Problem is, I don't know what the key is.

Once I opened the hatch to the outside, it was really bright.

But it was breathtaking. The space around me didn't abruptly end in a screen. If something was to fly in outward, it wouldn't eventually hit something. The air seemed to infinitely extend upwards. I could look far out and still see weaving swirls of colors. Nothing felt artificial.

This, I knew, was completely new. Is it any wonder I chose its name as my own?

I passed the wave of ecstasy and quietly had a hand in rescuing the planet from a disgusting mass of blended flesh. Nobody would recognize me as a hero, but I wouldn't mind. After seeing the infinitely repeating patterns of the sky, I didn't want to be pulled back underground, known even there by fame.

I was dropped off near the shore, and Cap'n Cuttlefish gave me, in exchange for the Octo Shot i used, a weaker replica for use in "Turf Wars", a box full of the eraser things i collected, and an ID. I have no clue where he got it, and it had the name "Eight" on it. A bit presumptuous, but at the time, I hadn't chosen my new name, so it worked.

He also gave me a tiny device, which he called a communicator. "Just in case."

Then I made them swear to pretend this incident in Deepsea Metro never happened. I had to lead a quiet life if I was to stay on the surface.

Agent 3 gave me a bit of his small fortune, but he didn't expect a repayment. Once I asked him where he got this much, he smiled and said "This," and held up his Hero Shot. "Well, another replica, but still."

I hoped that meant "Turf War" and not assassination. I was right.

However, I avoided this sport since it seemed to draw a lot of attention, and attention was the one thing I wanted to avoid. I didn't help that I was one of the two Octolings in the city.

A few more months passed, then the Flash happened.

Unfortunately, they got me. The army outnumbered us.

When I came to, I was back underground. For a moment, I was terrified that I was stuck down there again.

But someone explained to me the situation with Akash, and I relictantly agreed to cooperate.

A few days later, I was brought before the two Octolings heading the training process for my skills with each weapon class.

One of them, the one that talked, I was pretty sure I had never seen him before.

But the other one, I wasn't sure. His image was unfamiliar, but I couldn't make out what about him made me uncomfortable. I was asked for my name, but it was then I decided to abandon the name of "Eight."

I glanced up, looked in the older one's eyes, and said confidently,

"Sky. My name is Sky."

Nothing else felt right.

Later, after hearing his voice, I remembered that the old man was Octavio. After I told him my name, I swore to myself that I wouldn't appear in front of Deca Tower, holding a weapon, with the intent to participate in the sport.

I chose to be a part of the Dualie division. It had the most people, and it seemed the most important. I could blend in perfectly.

After I witnessed the death of Akash before my eyes, I felt ashamed. Part of me wanted to run up there and tear away Octavio. I couldn't, though. Not after what he did to Inkopolis. Not after what he did to us.

Two weeks have passed after the day of the battle at Sharktown.

And yet, here I was. In front of Deca Tower, holding a weapon, with the intent to participate in the sport.


	3. First Impressions

Deca Tower was weird.

I walked in and explored the floor on the bottom, but as I looked upwards — as I was used to doing — there were no more above. The rest is just a tall block of advertising.

But since only one of the screens was replaced, there's a long black pole in the middle of Inkopolis.

The only things on the ground floor were an obnoxious amount of tiny lightbulbs on the walls flashing various patterns and six identical machines on each side. They seemed to be for managing battle accounts. All of them were vacant, so I chose the one closest to me, tapped the screen to create an account, inputted a load of probably false information about myself 'cause I didn't even know my own birthday, then it asked me to choose a username.

_It's not like I'm signing up for a video game account, is it? _

_Whoa, I know what a video game is._

I ended up picking NightFall as my username because I couldn't think of anything else.

The machine spat out a card for me. It had all of the fake information, the username, and a photo that was supposed to be me. Instead, I moved out of the way of the camera and waved my hand in front of the lens. It showed a picture of a blur that looked kinda like a bird with a motor tic.

Below the ground floor were several basement levels, only accessible through an elevator that needed me to swipe the card. I turned left and went into lobby C after swiping my card at the door again. Empty. I did seem to be the first one there. Turf Wars reopened just a while ago, maybe people are still recovering from the Flash.

Nevertheless, I stayed in the lobby and sat down on one of the chairs.

About six and a half minutes passed before someone else walked in. He was a tall Inkling, holding a really large Brush and wearing a green hoodie.

I suddenly felt a little insecure about my somewhat revealing clothing. The same that I woke up in the subway wearing. I couldn't help it, it was the only set I had.

I didn't feel threatened by him, though. I just felt... cold. In the literal sense.

"Hey!" he said, sitting down across from me. "I thought I was the first one here." Looking up, he saw a screen that I didn't notice before. My bird-with-a-motor-tic photo was displayed on it with the username and my level, which was at 1. "Is this your first match?"

"Y-Yeah," I stammered. Funny how I could be sarcastic with a machine but not with anyone in person.

"Know what to do?"

I cleared my throat. "I read the rule book." That much was true. I kinda skimmed through the pages and called it a day. I had a a general idea of what to do but had no idea how it was scored or any penalties for ditching.

Somebody else walked in and wordlessly took a seat. Another Octoling, looked a little like me.

"Isn't it a little weird being the first one here?" Said the guy across from me.

I avoided eye contact because that seemed to be when I completely failed at any social contact. "Not the weirdest thing I've seen," I said, staring at the screen behind me.

I waited for a reaction, or even another question, but none came. A few more minutes passed, and then a short tone played from the screen. It slid the list of people in my team to the corner and displayed in large, custom-font letters, "You've been paired with lobby F." In another corner was a display of the stage for battle. Somewhere called "Kelp Dome".

Astonished, I found a fourth team member in the corner of the room. I didn't even see him walk in.

A circle of light shone on the floor followed by an opening, appearing like a camera lens and bordered by the circle.

The ally who sat across from me got up and fell through the opening feet-first.

Hopefully that was normal.

I waited for the other two to enter, then followed after them.

A dimly lit tunnel that I silently swam through greeted me.

As I found that the pathway went upward, I understood that we were about to emerge and begin my first match.

I broke the surface of the liquid and looked down. This was what the rule book called the "respawn pad". I gripped my Octo Shot Replica harder.

Kelp Dome was warm, and I smirked with my now well-suited clothing.

Immediately I began to look for ways to use the terrain to my advantage. The stage was symmetrical, so the enemy team would have no disadvantages that we wouldn't.

Unless the battle was heavily one-sided, most of the conflict would be in the center, so I decided to lag behind and cover the team's close area and the left lane before engaging in the center.

My eyes shut. I was waiting for the noise that signaled the start.

_Heh, I never thought I'd find myself holding a weapon for sport. _

_...It's nice on the surface. Maybe the memory suppression was worth the chance to live here._

The sound rang in my ears, and I turned around, covering the elevated ground in... orange?

My hair was orange now? How did they-

It didn't suit me, but whatever. I passed the gun to my right hand, holding it out to cover my right side as I ran down the left lane. The rest of my team was gone now, but I saw patches of our color down the other lane.

Perfect. I didn't have to worry about that side.

I rounded the wall in the far left corner, spinning my weapon in weird ways to cover as much ground as possible. The only way left from here was up or center.

Going up had its risks. I would have high ground, but that would make me susceptible to attacks from any direction. I went to the center to fight.

Being a supposed "master of all weapon classes," I understood the strengths and weaknesses of each class. For example, a Blaster, which I found trying to ruin my team's hard work in the center, worked best only with a direct hit or at its maximum range. Coupled with a slow rate of fire, I could take it.

With a series of easy dodges, I sent its user back to spawn.

I swam away to the corner approaching their side and took a stance behind the wall there. I reloaded and prepared for a fight.

A whistle blew. My stomach sank. It's only been thirty seconds, someone must have broken a rule. It wasn't me, was it?

"The match has been cancelled," said an automated voice from a distant speaker to my right. "Please return to the Tower."

Nervously complying, I super jumped to the respawn pad.

* * *

"What... happened?" Said the guy that sat across from me earlier.

In response, I pointed at the screen in the corner of the lobby. In large, bold letters, it said "Maintenance". Great omen impression for me. My first ever match was cancelled. Well, at least I didn't do anything wrong.

"Well, nothing we can do about it. I did think it was weird that it reopened this early." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "Hey, didn't catch your name?" He said to me, propping his now-dry Brush on the wall.

My name was one of the few things I could say with confidence to anyone. "Sky. I'm Sky." A probably creepy grin crept onto my face. I looked down, flustered.

"Sid. Nice to meet 'ya. See you around." He grabbed his Brush by the bristles and flipped the handle into his other hand, then left the lobby. Another shuffled out with him.

After a few seconds, another voice sounded. "He's... off, isn't he?" Said the last one in the lobby. The Octoling that looked like me. But in Octarian. The language.

"Maybe? I don't know him that well?" For some reason, my shyness wasn't flaring up with her.

She leaned on the wall and squinted at me, as if inspecting me. "Hey, does the name Annabelle ring a bell?" She said, still in Octarian.

"No." Well, that was a lie. I heard the name as I watched Akash die.

Lovely.

"W-well then, that's me. Call me Annie."

* * *

**Y'know, this is really off-topic, but how do you guys feel about shipping? I tried to do something like that last story, but I wasn't so sure how well it played out.**

**Not just that one, though. Shipping in general.**


	4. Artificial Dale

Annie. I've heard that name before, I know it!

I lay in my bed as moonlight seeped in through a break in the curtains. My room was clean-ish — nothing was really in a mess, but I'd neglected at least dusting the room. It was small, only holding my bed and drawers beside it where I kept my most important stuff. Outside was the rest of my apartment.

Since the girl there told me her name, I ejected myself from that conversation as quickly as possible. I hoped I didn't come off as rude, 'cause she seemed like a really nice person. My hair slowly faded back to its usual purple.

But that name. I know I've heard it. Not just from Akash, anymore. The way she said the word — Annie — it felt familiar, but I don't know where, when, why it did.

I buried my face in my pillow, completely burying myself in my mind.

_Alright, so this girl is Annie. Why do I feel like I've known her? There's no way I had some sort of connection with Akash, right? _

_Think, Sky, where did you hear that name? I feel a weird affiliation with her, but why?_

_Ugh! This is useless..._

A booming sound interrupted the thought. I shot up, throwing the curtains apart and sticking my head out the window. I shielded my eyes from the abrupt light and forced myself to look in the direction of the noise. Luckily, I was high enough to see what happened.

I saw a forest to the right, the same one that the OATH came from. Somewhere around the middle of what I could see, trees were collapsing seemingly out of nowhere.

My hearts raced. What now? Don't tell me Octavio is behind this?

I threw on my clothes from Deepsea, then wasted no time in grabbing my room key, ink holding backpack from Deepsea — but without the bomb — and Octo Shot Replica. It wasn't much, but it was something. I jumped out the window. Floors rushed by me in a matter of seconds, then I broke my fall with a well-timed squat. Not that I needed to do that anyway.

I broke into a sprint. More people were waking up from the noise, looking out their own windows to see what the commotion was. Undoubtedly, some of them saw me, a random Octoling teen running through the city, but whatever. If this was a problem, I needed to shut it down quickly.

I ran for about fifteen minutes before the suburbs finally yielded into something I could see. A long section of the ground covering the width of the entire forest had caved onwards and broke apart, holding trees and loose dirt. A digger nearby lay in what remained of the ground.

Good, so it wasn't Octavio.

I wiped off my sweat and relaxed my pace, still proceeding to the newly-formed dale.

The stars were better tonight than usual. I saw a dark, inky sky with lights piercing through like a blanket ornamented with bulbs, each with their own unique size and brightness. The centerpiece of the scene, the waxing moon, tilted to the side, leaving an imperfection that made the image all the more memorable.

I realized I'd stopped. I shook off the daze and approached the digger.

"Hey!" Someone cried. "Anyone out there? Please help me!"

Oh no. Someone was in there.

I approached cautiously since falling and probably scratching myself on the sharp rocks wasn't very appealing.

I clambered over a few large stones and found myself on top of the digger's claw. It was yellow, along with the rest of the machine except for the treads.

After I made my way to the main body from the claw, I could see almost everything else despite the dimness.

The door was branded "CATFISH." It's logo was, predictably, a catfish jumping out of what I assumed was a body of water. The reason for that assumption was that I couldn't see it though the particularly large stone on it.

A banging came from the door. "Anyone?"

I quietly stepped up to the boulder. Looking at the scene, I would only have to push it a few feet. There was nothing around that I could use as a lever, nor was the boulder far enough off the side so it could tip off.

There was no choice but to push it. At least it was somewhat round.

I set my back to the rock and fixed my high-heels around a few loose bolts. Pushing with my legs, I heaved the oversized rock to the side, but only a minimal distance. Whatever. Progress is progress, and there was no way to speed it up.

Surely that teen inside heard me, or at least the boulder. It hung over the edge, just a bit more and it would lose its balance.

With one last push, the rock started moving on its own. I stood up, ceasing my lean on the rock, and stepped off the door of the digger. Before its inevitable opening, I jumped off the main body and hid near its treads. The rock hit the ground before I did, sending tremors through the ground and drowning out my landing.

The sound of the door being forced open reached my ears. A few more bangs against metal sounded, which was probably someone climbing out.

Whoever it was didn't move for a while, then jumped off the digger, towards Inkopolis' direction.

_Good, they didn't see me._

_...Why did I do that?_

What exactly was the purpose of hiding my identity now? As far as I knew, there was no reason. I guess some long, forgotten instinct came over me.

I observed the rest of the rubble from the treads. This seemed to be the tunnel that the Widow dug. Also, judging by its size and comparing it to the Widow, its tunnel was extremely close to the forest.

I guessed some teens broke into that nearby digger and finished the job. What amazed me was how a small piece of broken land chained into this.

But this piece of Octarian technology...

I involuntarily gasped. Right now, this was the closest chance I had at finding more on my past.

I shot up, took a quick glance at the night sky, now littered with leaves, and found a pile of dirt and rocks that led out of the artificial dale. Since I was higher, I could see past the rubble and found a reinforced dome at the end of the scarred forest. That was my destination, 'cause I definitely wasn't finding anything in the rubble.

As I made my way, I started walking blankly. My thoughts on Annie overwhelmed my mind again.

_Annie. Were we friends? Enemies?_

The "strong connection" I felt was too ambiguous to decide either way,

_I definitely knew her, or at least just the name. What if we were neither? Just acquaintances?_

_What if..?_

My mind stopped rambling when it saw the dome's huge entrance. It was blocked nearly everywhere with even more rocks and dirt. Everywhere other than the top of the hole. I leapt to the top of the pile and peeked inside.

To my dismay, someone was in there already. But how? Was this another one of the teens who collapsed all of this land?

Whoever it was was facing away from me. They were looking at a screen, furiously typing on a loud keyboard.

I strained my eyes in order to look at them. No use. Couldn't tell.

Should I risk jumping in?

I detached the Octo Shot from its holster on my belt and fired once behind me, away from the perpetrator.

As expected, they turned around on reflex. Now I could get a good look at their face without revealing my own. My head was only a silhouette, blending in with the pile in the moonlight.

They looked left, right, then up, putting their face in full view.

_Wha-_

"Annie?" I said. "Why're you-"

I interrupted myself as I jumped down.

"Shut up!" She whispered furiously. "They might hear you!" She turned off the monitor, making everything pitch black other than our natural, short-ranged bioluminescence. I hoped that she would go with the friend rather than the enemy route; I barely knew her. Maybe.

"Who's they?" I whispered back, complying to the quietness. "The teenager who broke into the digger outside? They're gone now."

"Not him, his little gang he has!"

"I didn't see anyone coming here." I raised my volume a little, testing whether that was fine.

"Y- you didn't?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

A few moments of silence passed. "...So, what brings you here?" said Annie nervously, abruptly changing the topic.

"Wai-" I began. A sigh escaped my lips as I realized there was really nothing else to talk about. "Heard this, got curious, came. You?"

"Eh- I'll show you later."

She unplugged something from the computer.

Shuffling came from outside. "Hey, someone in there?" said a man with a strong accent. It seemed like he didn't get to the top of the dirt, rock, and wood pile. My stomach dropped.

Annie tiptoed to me after I gestured outside. She slowly pulled me to the back of the room, an action which I followed willingly.

She felt the wall for... something. I looked back and kept watch.

"Here," she said. My head whirled to face her and a wall with a diamond, bordered with lights and pulsating with red.

I immediately knew what to do. Somehow. I reached behind me and uncapped my ink pack. I turned around with my back facing her and let her dip her hand into it and smear it over the diamond. Something clicked, and the wall rotated. We went through, and it closed behind us. A dark hall lay in front of us. I recapped the ink pack.

"Did anyone see?" Annie said. "That'd be really bad."

I pulled my arm away and we started to walk side-by-side. "Do you think I'm stupid? And no, nobody saw."

She looked down. "Sorry if that was... never mind."

I stopped as we came to a fork in the near-black hallway. "Don't mind it, I've been having a weird day."

_And_ you _were centered around most of it, but though no fault of your own._

"Go right," she said flatly. After seeing my accusing expression, she continued, "There was a map in the computers there."

I decided to trust her yet again, a spur-of-the-moment gut instinct that confused me even more.

"Lead the way," I said. "I don't know this place at all."

Annie sped up to get in front of me.

I followed her, usually going straight but occasionally making a turn.

Eventually, we made it to a staircase. "Here's the way out. From here we need to just head through the forest and we'll be back at... Inkopolis." She said the city's name with hesitation, but I didn't pay any heed to it. "Sorry for barging in on... whatever you were doing back there," I said.

"You came at the perfect time," she said, landing at the top stair. "I didn't have any ink with me to get through that wall. So, thanks for that."

It felt kind of nice hearing that.

As we left the building, lights came on. I swung my eyes around, alert for something, but they just seemed to be automatic. Several short buildings dotted the area. Most looked like storage sheds. There was a large circle near the actual, real valley that, judging by the lines, opened like a camera lens, similar to the one in Deca Tower. Dirt roads connected everything.

I had no idea what the place was for.

"Well, you coming?" Annie said, pointing at the forest.

Wordlessly, I followed along.


	5. Actual First Impressions

"Half this stuff's encrypted," Annie concluded, "and the other half's stuff we already know." She was staring at a monitor, but I couldn't make anything out from my angle. But this was my first chance to get a good look at Annie. She looked older than I did, a bit short, and her hair was purple, like mine, and flowing behind her head. Not as much as my hair did, though.

"Remind me why you downloaded everything in there onto that flash drive?" I said. I had my own reasons to see what was in there, but I didn't know hers. She generously let me have one of those spinning office chairs, so I just fooled around on that thing while she summarized each file. Most of them were details about the Flash or other things that I either didn't care to know or knew already, like population statistics and the battle in Sharktown.

She turned off her monitor and unplugged the flash drive. It clattered on the desk and came to a stop. "Why not? There must've been so much in there that could be used. Just need to decrypt the files, and who knows what's in there?"

"Mm-hmm." I said boredly. I pushed against the nearest wall and spun around. Annie's apartment was nothing grand. It was similar in structure to mine, but nearly everything she owned was still in a box. Other than the monitor, all other light sources were mostly blocked.

"Ugh, fine." Annie gently stopped the chair with her hand. "I guess that 'maintenance' should be over now. Wanna try again?"

_How odd, _I thought randomly_. All it took for us to be comfortable with each other was a flash drive and an ink tank._

_And an almost run-in with the authorities. Wonder what they're doing in the accidental clearing._

"Sure," I conceded. "I'm pretty much ready now." I slipped on my ink tank and grabbed my Octo Shot. "I'll see you at the Square."

* * *

When I opened the front door of Annie's apartment building, light greeted me. Did it really take that long to see all those files from the Widow's tunnel?

Judging by the position of the sun and the color of the sky, it was about 9 in the morning.

After super jumping to Inkopolis Square, the tower caught my eye. Another screen was installed, making two out of however many there were in the first place.

Then it occurred to me that I left my Tower ID in my apartment. Can't start without the motor tic bird. I quickly retrieved it with an uneventful detour to my place.

After landing again, I saw Annie already leaning against the Tower, a blank expression on her face. She was wearing a headband and a plain white t-shirt, an odd contrast to my black clothing against my tanned skin.

"Sorry," I said. "Needed this." I showed her my card.

"Nice photo," she said. "Looks just like you." After studying it further, she said, "You're not really three years old, are you?"

Ah. Dang it. My "birthday" was on there. "No, of course not. I vomited a bunch of fake information at the machine in there." I stuffed the card back into my pocket before she could see any more.

_Please don't say it_

_Please don't say it_

"Then what's your actual birthday?"

_OH COME ON_

"I, uh. Don't know," I stammered. Annie stared at me, and her face reeked of confusion.

"You... Don't know?"

"-That is to say I was... orphaned." I tried to keep my face as straight as possible.

Annie's shoulders relaxed. "Oh. I-Is that a sensitive topic?"

_Phew, I'm clear. If anyone found out my endeavors in Deepsea, I'd be anything anyone talked about for months._

"No, not really," I wanted to get off this topic, so I unholstered my Octo Shot. "We ready to go?"

* * *

I emerged high up on a really tall building. The stage was very vertical and was supposedly called Moray Towers. Annie was next to me clutching a Splattershot, which I think was pretty much identical to my weapon.

"Ah, carp," someone said. "It's Masked Mayhem."

"And who would that be?" Annie said. I had the same question, but there was no need to repeat it.

The other guy set his Slosher on the spawn point and sat on it. "It's a team of super good players that appeared last night. Their win rate so far is 100%."

Thinking back to the screen in the lobby, all of the opposing team members had their faces entirely covered by four identical masks consisting of black-framed sunglasses and white mouth coverings. I couldn't even tell what gender they were. Their screen names were Leo, Scorpio, Gemini, and Taurus.

"Perfect," I muttered. I liked a challenge. But really, they appeared last night? Wearing sunglasses?

The countdown to the match was almost over. Our team's color was blue, and the other was pink.

Three seconds left.

Two,

One,

_Clap!_

I aimed to the right and held down the trigger as I leapt off the first and second ledges. On the third, I held back and hid behind the cover as I kept shooting.

The coast seemed clear, so I went right to the ramp going down. Immediately after leaving my cover, a red laser hit my chest.

I spun my body to avoid the incoming stream of ink, all while shooting to give myself a path to swim through.

_Whoa. That reaction time, though. I dodged a Charger stream!?_

The ink concealed me as I went through to the cover on the bottom of the ramp. That Charger would be a problem; this place was like that class's home territory.

Once I was sure I was out of range, I kept going across to the right side of the lowest part of the stage. I blindly shot at the ground, searching for anyone from the enemy team. Another one was coming after me holding a pair of Dualies. Before they could reach me, I swam up the ramp and got to the high ground. Dualies dodged my first few shots and tried to swim up the platform, but then I jumped off, firing backwards at the wall they were on and hearing a pop as they were splatted. They couldn't fire more than five shots through that entire encounter.

The laser hit me again, but I landed behind the block before the shot could hit me. Wind brushed against my head as it nearly made contact.

From where I was, I shot the pink floor that Dualies left, then swam up the ramp again, aiming to dispatch that Charger. Even if it was only a few seconds, any time without that Charger out on the map was precious.

I left a Splat Bomb to my left then fired at the wall to form a way to the Charger's perch. Once there, I leapt out of the wall and lobbed a Splat Bomb with my right hand behind them while also firing my Octo Shot with my left.

Of course, they didn't last long.

The upwards ramp seemed clear, so after running a few feet, I covered the area in blue, slowly preceding up. At the next level area, though, Dualies was there to meet me. I left another bomb at my my feet and leapt off, swinging my firing hand in a wide arc.

I didn't splat Dualies that time, though. They took another path down the ramp and let me fall.

Annie was there, but behind cover a short distance away. She was shooting at the dead center of the stage but didn't notice the enemy nearly in range of her. I quickly splatted them with a volley of shots.

"Wha-" Annie started after she heard the splat. "When did you get here?" She didn't release the trigger, so her Splattershot kept shooting.

"Five seconds ago," I said. "And you're welcome. Let's go."

"No joke, you're good at this," Annie said. We both came to an unspoken agreement to head up the wall to the enemy's side again. "You sure this is your first- Uh, second match?"

"I'm level one," I said flatly. No elaboration needed. "And isn't it yours, too?" Until about a month or so before the Flash, the only Octolings in the city were me and Marina, then the Octoling population skyrocketed after the battle at Sharktown.

"...I guess," Annie said. "But I've done some fighting before."

_Okay, what? I don't remember seeing anyone that looked like her in the training camp, so for what?_

Something held me back from exploring that topic further.

For the rest of the time, we stuck together. For the most part, at least.

On a distant sign, the words, "THIRY SECONDS LEFT" were displayed. Our team was at a heavy disadvantage. So, not wasting any time, I super jumped to an inaptly named Squid Beakon near the center and activated my Inkjet with the button on the handle of my weapon.

Of course, that made me a free target for the Charger, so I immediately fired at them and leaned to the side, once again completely dodging the stream of ink.

I then flew up the ramps, constantly hitting the button to give myself that little boost in height. I optimized my shots, covering as much pink ground as I could, but then the entire Inkjet overheated, exploding in a blue bomb of ink and sending me back to where I started.

Then, anticlimacticly, I was splatted by Dualies camping my spot.

_Of course that would happen._

As I respawned, the whistle blew.

I didn't hesitate to swim back to the Tower. The score would be shown there, according to the rulebook.

While swimming though, I thought back to the match. It was thrilling! I loved every second of it!

Other than when I got camped, obviously.

I emerged in the lobby, and a screen showed a top down view of the stage. One look, and I knew we lost.

Good guys — 42.6% Bad guys — 57.2%

That... didn't add up to 100. But those were odd names to represent the teams. Good guys and Bad guys? Was it always like this?

"Well, dang," said of the guys I didn't know. "Closest match so far against those guys. Usually, they completely destroy."

The screen shifted to a leaderboard, showing the stats. I inked exactly 1991p.

Whatever that meant. It was the highest on the board, beating even Masked Mayhem's individual scores. Four of me would have won, but the two guys I didn't know kinda dragged down the team, both under a thousand. Annie was fine though, she was at 1699p.

Not that I'd say any of that out loud.

"Who taught you?" Annie said. It was like she was fangirling over me, "No way that was your first time with a weapon!"

I didn't know the real answer to that question either. "M... Myself?" I said, thinking quickly. I mean, I guess it was true. I know everything about my skill from Deepsea. "Welp, I haven't been gotten any sleep since yesterday." I realized the fact as I said it. Suddenly, I felt even more tired. "See you tomorrow maybe."

Nobody moved as I left the lobby. Even the other two heard it.

But one thought kept going through my, and probably Annie's, mind.

_I did that _without _sleep?_

* * *

**To reiterate what I said last story, updates should be weekly. Really should have put that earlier, huh?**


	6. Relinquished Ownership

The first thing I did when I woke up was those open the curtains and look outside. It was the middle of the night.

_Guess this is my life now. Condemned to an eternity of a horrible sleep schedule._

But there were more pressing matters. I went over to my bedside table and opened it, seeing all of the goodies I owned. Which amounted to practically nothing.

The first thing I saw was the box of Mem Cakes. Even though those let me remember things, they were only phrases and feelings I couldn't describe. Like a shadow without anything casting it.

I pushed that to the side and found what I was looking for: the communicator that Cap'n Cuttlefish gave me. It was pretty much a phone but with only the texting and occasional phone call. Unlike the terribly impractical squid-shaped phones up here, this one was a regular rectangle.

I hit the power button on the side, and it immediately asked for a scan of a suction-cup. Exactly what I expected, since no two are alike unless they're on the same head.

_Wait, when did he get a scan of my-?_

_Ugh, doesn't matter yet._

I held it up to my head and let it scan my hair. It gave a dim flash from the screen, then switched to a message display. It even _looked_ like regular texting.

I immediately began typing.

* * *

8

Hey Captain, do you anything about me from before Deepsea? Like at all?

* * *

Was I seriously using this? I cut ties with the NSS long ago and never thought about reconnecting until... Not technically yesterday.

Not more than five seconds later, a response appeared.

* * *

4

Whoa hold up since when were there eight of us

* * *

Many, many curses in Octarian were running through my mind. Who was this? Agent 4? Now the rest of the NSS knew?

Before I could bash my head against the wall, another response appeared.

* * *

C

Agent 8, only you can see this. A reply you make here will only be seen by me. I do not know anything, and neither does Agent 3. Did you finally decide to participate in a Turf War?

8

I did. How did you know?

C

Agent 3 and I saw your skill down there. Bringing that to Deca Tower would make it obvious that there's something about you. Anyway, the best lead someone would have would be down in the camp past the forest, but now that's all buried. Any other ideas?

8

When can I see you in person?

C

You could now.

* * *

I pushed aside the nagging fear of Agent 4 knowing exactly what I didn't want anyone to know, but since Cap'n Cuttlefish could see me now, I could show him the flash drive. If anyone could somehow decode those encrypted files, it was him. Except it was actually Annie's flash drive, not mine.

_Nope, still remember nothing about her._

He sent me an address, then I once again grabbed my room key and and jumped out my window. I kept the communicator, just in case.

I landed and quickly super jumped to Annie's apartment building which was remarkably close to the center of the city. As I rose up, I saw the night sky again. For some reason, I couldn't see as many stars as I did last night. I landed with one knee on the ground.

...and the building was locked. Go figure.

I remembered that Annie lived on the fourth floor, which wasn't too high up. A decision made o a whim saw me choosing to climb up there somehow.

Without my weapon, though, swimming up the wall wasn't an option.

Luckily, the next building over was short and had a fire staircase that I could reach with a little bit of a boost. A dumpster sat nearby, so I wheeled it over as quietly as I could to the staircase, then I leapt on top of its slanted top and could barely reach the staircase with a jump. I hooked my hand onto the bottom stair and pulled myself up.

After climbing to the roof of the building, I saw that there was quite the distance between the where I was and the window that led into the hallway. It was ajar and could easily fit me as an octopus. I backed up to the other end of the roof, ran to it, and flew off the side, barely slipping though the window.

I stood up and broke into a wide grin. It felt amazing that that worked.

_412, 414, 416. Aha, there. 418._

I knocked on the door, "Annie?" I called. "Sorry for bailing on you earlier, I just didn't want those guys to start asking questions.

She opened the door, wearing the same thing that she wore earlier during the Turf War. In her left hand was a mug full of purified water. "Hey. Nah, I don't blame you, I kinda bailed on them right behind you for the same reason. Guess we both have our secrets. Also I won't ask how you got in 'cause bearing witness is a hassle, y'know?"

I laughed, something I don't do often. Annie just made me feel more comfortable with myself, I guess.

"You're here for something, right?" She asked. "Nobody comes here at this ungodly hour unless they're asking for something."

"Yeah," I said. "Can I borrow that flash drive? I'll try to see if I can find more on it."

She reached into her back pocket with her other hand. "Here," she said, tossing it to me. I caught it. "Keep it. I already made a copy of everything to my computer anyway. But you have to swear that if you find anything, I get to see it, too."

"Deal. Thanks, see you around!"

She shut the door as I turned back. I looked around once more to see if anyone could see me, then did the same out the window. The coast was clear, so I opened the window as far as it would go and dove headfirst out of it, soundlessly landing after a front flip.

_Alright, next. To Cap'n Cuttlefish._

Before that, however, I needed to make sure that he was alone.

* * *

8

Are you the only one there?

C

I am. Are you coming now?

8

Yeah. I got something you might want to see.

* * *

I stuffed the communicator back in my pocket then jumped again to the nearest jump point to his house. Which just so happened to be Inkopolis Plaza.

After landing, I saw that nobody was around. Even though the road was fixed and the huge basin that was once there was gone, it was still deserted. The fact that it was night had nothing to do with it, since Inkopolis Square ran 24/7.

I backed out of the area and turned toward his house. It was a pretty uneventful walk, I couldn't even see most of the night sky. After about ten minutes or so, I arrived. Another very bland house.

_What did I expect?_

I checked the address with the one he sent me and yes, it was the right place.

This place had a doorbell, so I pressed it.

_And doorbells. I remember those exist. But not where they did in my past._

If I was lucky, this flash drive would tell me more.

The door opened, and Cap'n Cuttlefish seemed to be wearing the same track suit that he always did for some reason. "Ahoy, Agent 8! Come in!" He yelled. "What was it that you wanted to show me?"

"This." I extracted the flash drive from my other pocket and showed him. "Got it from the tunnel that collapsed through the forest yesterday. Half of the stuff in here's encrypted, though."

He pressed his glasses closer to his eyes and peered at the object, as if he was determining its value. "I don't have anything in here this can attach to, bucko."

"Y-you don't." It was a more of statement than a question. "Is there... _something_ you can do?"

"Maybe. I do know where I can put this. Come back tomorrow, and I'll tell you what I find." And with that, he took it from me and shut the door.

Literally five seconds later, the communicator started vibrating.

* * *

C

Do you still have that computer thingy that those USB things can go in?

* * *

It was a message sent to everyone.

I pivoted and hit the doorbell again. He answered immediately.

"Don't tell 'em where you got it," I said. "Except for maybe Agent 3, I think he's fine. Also, about Agent 4-"

"Don't worry," he interrupted. "Only she saw that before I deleted it. I told her to not mention it to the others."

_She. So Agent 4 was a girl, too. Like frickin' everyone._

"Alright, thanks. See ya." I turned around again and heard the door shut. I decided to walk the whole way back to my apartment 'cause I sure didn't have anything else better to do. The communicator vibrated again. I read the messages as I walked.

* * *

3

Yeah, we do. Why?

C

I have something that might be interesting.

* * *

As for the rest, I let it vibrate and waited until I got home to read them all.

I shuffled on the sidewalk, giving the dead silent suburbs some sound.

A bit more, then downtown appeared. Here, a few stray cars drove through. Some, to my annoyance, didn't have their lights on.

I rounded a corner, then heard the sound of a punch.

* * *

**Guys, I can't update this weekend because life stuff. Thanks for patience and see you next time.**


	7. Suddenly, a Roommate

**I'm back! Again! Chapter start!**

* * *

I stopped my march to wherever and listened again. The sound came once more from the alley to my left. Yeah, 'cause it was always an alley.

No way I was just going to walk by. I snuck to the corner and looked around. Another Octoling was there, cornered behind a trash can. He was taller than I was, older, and had a weird Mohawk thing going on with his hair. He looked like he could hold his own, except he was outnumbered and unarmed.

Two hooded figures stood above him, and they weren't the police. They were both pointing Octo Shots at him — not replicas — and one said, "You're coming with us." It was a feminine voice.

Something about it was off, though. It was monotonous, almost robotic. Even more alarming was that I'd heard a voice exactly like it before.

That wasn't a racist Inkling, like I first thought. That was a sanitized Octoling from Deepsea.

I've dealt with these things before, and I wasn't afraid to do it again.

"Hey!" I yelled, stepping out into the open. The moonlight cast a shadow on the ground in front of me, showing them a silhouette with the moon hovering above my head. "Number 10,008 was the last one. No exceptions."

_Wow, I sound so cool!_

_...Why am I fangirling over myself?_

I predicted their next attack and swerved to the side, behind another overturned garbage can. I saw their faces, and the luminescent aqua of their skin was a dead giveaway. I wasn't dealing with free will, so they were both either pre-programmed or being commanded from somewhere.

They both took a different side of the trash can, so I jumped on top of it, barely dodging their bullets of what I hoped was ink.

From the top of the garbage can, I jumped off the other side and kicked it to one of them, putting her between it and the wall. I turned to face the other, who had run off to my side and started shooting.

By now, the ground I could run on was limited. I dove for the other, taking a few hits to my face, and tackled her to the ground. I stood up, pressing my knee on her chest, and wrenched the Octo Shot from her hand. I couldn't use it since I didn't have an ink tank, but it was better than just letting her have it.

While keeping it in my right hand, I kicked her again in the side and stood up to see her ally falling from above me. She must have super jumped after getting the trash can off.

I prepared to ram the Octo Shot into her face, but then the guy they were attacking suddenly came and tackled her out of the air. Without thinking, I followed them to where they landed and swung the Octo Shot I had at her hand, sending her own weapon tumbling out into the street.

From behind, the first one struggled to stand up and ran towards me, but then the guy stopped her charge by simply standing in front of her.

_Whoa, this dude's like a wall. He's a lot stronger than he looks._

He placed his hands on her arm and gripped it, whirling her back and tossing her next to her ally.

I ran out to the street to grab the other weapon before they could get up. Now they were the ones unarmed.

One literally hissed, and both ran out into the sidewalk, put their hoods back on, and completely ignored me as they super jumped away from the city. Neither I nor buff dude said anything. Only the quiet whilstle of the breeze made a sound.

I hobbled over to the sidewalk and dropped the weapons as my arms grew weak and my knees buckled. Not from exhaustion, because that was pretty easy, but rather despair. The Sanitized were coming to the surface.

"A-are you fine?" Said the unnaturally buff guy.

"I-it's nothing," I said. I forced myself to kneel and took the weapons in my hands again. "Anyway, it should be me asking that question." Once again, I avoided eye contact.

"Just peachy. I almost got mugged in an alley." He had an accent I hadn't heard before. "Thanks for helpin' me back there. Name's Jacob."

I started examining the weapons. They both had the signatures of non-replicas: their handles were slightly thinner and the nozzle was larger. "Halfway through it turned to you helping me," I remarked flatly. "I'm Sky. Why were you back there in the first place?"

"Nothin' big." He pulled me to my feet like I weighed nothing. "Just walkin', enjoyn' the night, then out o' nowhere, those creepy girls with the blue skin jumped at me!" He held up his hands like they were claws. "I could've beat their faces in, but I didn't have no gun to shoot at 'em!"

"Been there before," I said, turning to Inkopolis Square. "C'mon, we'll talk." And by that, I meant I'd listen while he talked because it seemed like he'd spill his guts out. I had to know more about the Sanitized, and so did the NSS. I took the lead while he walked behind me. "So do you know why they attacked you?"

"Nah, they just jumped me. Dunno why, but I got this feeling they'll be back."

In response, I handed him one of the Octo Shots without turning around. "Keep this. If that's the case, you can use it against them. Just make sure to change the ink color.

He took the gun and test fired it to his right. "Now what was all that you said 'bout Number 10,008?"

Thinking quickly, I changed the subject. "Maybe we shouldn't go to Inkopolis Square with these things," meaning the weapons. I mentally rerouted to my apartment building. "Have somehwhere to go?"

"Pfft, nah," he said, as if living somewhere was a joke to him. "I just came here a few days back without nothin'."

_Oh man, I am going to regret this big time-_

"Wanna stay with me, then?"

_Why did I say that Sky you damned-_

"Uh- Oh, no, no, I don't wanna do that to ya. I don't have a job or anythin'."

_Okay then. Sky. You have an opportunity here._

"You can shoot a gun, right?" I could tell because of how the Sanitized came after him. They'd only pick subjects if they were good at combat.

Even without looking, I could tell his face lit up. "Can I shoot? Aw, yeah! I can-"

"There's a huge sport here, not sure if you've heard of it, but it pays really well, especially if you're good." Somehow, I could feel inner me burning holes into me with her eyes. "Well, we're here," I said. I opened the door to my apartment building with my room key — which was actually a card — and invited him in by holding the door open.

"Now, you're sure about this?" He looked uncomfortable. I would be, too.

"Absolutely," I said. Inner me was bashing her head against the wall.

* * *

_How anticlimactic. I let him into my apartment and he just got on the couch and dozed off._

_At least he doesn't snore._

Since I wasn't tired at all, I went back outside. For a moment, I considered going right to Cap'n Cuttlefish to tell him about the Sanitized that I found, but decided against it for now. He was probably busy with the flash drive anyway, and maybe other NSS members were there.

I stood right outside my door for ages, completely lost on what to do. I stared around at the not-so-intricately designed wallpaper and sat against the wall. All I could do was think about what I had just done. I just let some random homeless dude live with me.

...Okay, maybe homeless was exaggerating a bit. He _did_ mention how he recently moved here. Jacob was most likely looking for a place anyway.

_Guess I'll wait and see how this plays out_.

I sat in silence for a short while.

Once I decided to take another walk, the elevator down the hall dinged, for lack of a better term, and its doors slid open.

Lo and behold, Annie walked out, wearing the exact same thing and holding the exact same cup. I stood up, searching for something to say.

"Hey," said Annie. "Found anything on the flash drive yet?"

I shook my head. "No." Then I smiled as a thought came to me. "Also I'm not gonna ask how you got in 'cause bearing witness is a hassle, y'know?"

A laugh escaped her mouth, a rich, high sound. I'd never heard it before that point. "I'll hopefully have something by tomorrow," I said, content with the light atmosphere.

She glanced at the clock. "By tomorrow, do you mean during the day, or actually tomorrow? It just passed midnight." I checked the clock hanging nearby on the wall, and yep, it was just past midnight.

"...I'll just... tell you when I find something." I shuffled back to the wall. "Did you follow me here?" I asked, realizing that I'd never told her where I live, and following me was definitely possible, with that really long walk I made. She could've seen me with Cap'n Cuttlefish.

"Kinda?" She said. "I was heading to Inkopolis Square when I saw you walking here. Who was that guy with you? Your boyfriend?" She teased, grinning devilishly at me

"N-no!" I said. "No, I-I mean. Just a neighbor." I didn't tell even remotely attracted to him.

Not that I knew what that was like.

Nevertheless, the notion made my cheeks burn.

"Riiiiiiight..." she winked. "Just jokin'. You up for more battles? Looks like 'NightFall' fits more now that we're both night dwellers."

"Y-yeah, sure," I stammered, still recovering from the shock. "Go on ahead. I'll meet you there." I turned to face my door.

"Make sure to bring your boy-"

"Annie." I commanded. "Don't. Please."

And with that, I went in and shut the door behind me, making sure not to slam it to both not wake up Jacob and to tell Annie I wasn't mad.


	8. Backtrack

**Hey guys, Summer's here, and you know what that means! I have free time!**

**...okay I know that the improved chapters for my other story have stopped, but let me explain.**

**I said that I would not stop updating The Agents of Inkopolis with polished chapters on Tuesday, April 7th.**

**The thing is, later that exact same day, I fell off of a mountain bike and broke my jaw. Seems like the timing was perfect.**

**Anyway, I'm fine now. It's been a while, and I'm glad to be back. Finally.**

* * *

Unlike most people, I owned nothing that could feasibly be stolen that wasn't on me right now or locked up in my room, so everything I had was pretty much safe from Jacob.

Unless someone was to somehow get the entire couch out the door. They'd have to undo all of my hard assembly work and get each piece out during the night when I wasn't there.

In other words, I had absolutely no worries in my mind as I obliterated the other night owls of Inkopolis.

Annie and I held the dead center of Wahoo World, a stupidly-named amusement park that was still open for some reason. "You're sure there aren't any duo battles held here?" I said to Annie, ducking under a volley of fire from the donut-shaped pit below, "Kinda sick of carrying these amateurs." I dropped a bomb to one side of my attacker and fired at the other, securing my victory in that exchange.

The thirty-second bell rung. "Unfortunately. There're League Battles, but those also put you with another pair." She swung her gun — which I didn't recognize — in a wide arc. "We're surrounded."

"You don't have to tell me." The rest of the team was approaching with a fresh coat of Ink Armor. I swam to the side, and suddenly Annie was in the air. I thought for a moment that she fled, but her ascension was straight up. At the height of her jump, she pressed a button on the bottom of her weapon. She hung in the air for a moment, suddenly becoming coated in a purple coat of ink. Not a second later, she launched toward the ground, unleashing torrents of purple. I held my arms in front of my face to shield my eyes. The force of it nearly blew me down.

And then the whistle blew. The match ended, and I took a glance around the map. It was hard to tell who won.  
I nodded at Annie, and we returned to the lobby. The screen was loading.

"What was that?" I asked Annie. "I've never seen something like it before." As in, a Splashdown out of a super jump. Unless it was some other thing, but that was only possible with Dualies.

"It's called Sk- Uh, just a Splashdown midair." She turned away, but I already knew why.

_What. Skydive. She was going to say Skydive._

That was a term that only people from the underground training camp knew. It was coined by an Inkling named Rose and performed by dodge rolling midair into a Splashdown.

At that moment, I decided that yes, this was a path I wanted to take.

"Were... were you going to say Skydive?"

"No!" She said, way too quickly. "Wait, why do _you _know what that is?"

She was trying to flip it on me, but I had nothing to hide. About that, at least. "I... was Captain Rose's best soldier. I fought in Sharktown"

Best soldier might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but I wanted to make myself sound better. The other two from that last match left, probably because we completely outshined them.

"Yeah. Me too. I guess." She looked behind her back nervously. "I did too... Skarktown. I also fought there. Uh, didn't want many people to know."

"You must _really _know what you're doing, then."

"Mm." She turned to look at me again. Again with that distant sense of familiarity. Is _that _where I'd seen her? The training camp? We might have been in different divisions. "But it's kinda hard to bring that here. There are a lot of rules and regulations I have to follow, but in Sharktown, all I had to do was win."

I leaned back in the couch. The score was up by now, but I didn't care about it. "I get it," I said. "I have all these instincts that I constantly need to suppress to not get banned."

Well, that was another thing we had in common. "What is it?" She said. "Why're you staring at me like that?"

I averted my gaze. "Nothing. I just really feel like I've seen you before." I stood up and took a deep breath. "You wanna get out of this lobby? It reeks of tryhard sweat."

She smiled faintly. "Yeah, let's head out. It's quiet outside at this hour."

"Ah..." I sat down at the table outside of the shoe place. It had an umbrella, but I didn't know why. It was pretty dark. Annie sat on the opposite end.

I leaned back, giving myself a view of the sky. I could see more of it from here, but there seemed to be less stars than the first night out. My mind cleared, and my mouth started running on its own. "Annie?" I said, not bothering to look at her.

"Y-yeah?" She seemed on edge since I asked her about Skydive.

"Sky isn't really my birth name. Probably. I don't even know if I have one." Nobody else was around, and even if someone was, they probably wouldn't understand Octarian.

"You don't know?" She said. She leaned closer to me.

I didn't respond for a while. A cool wind drafted into the area. "Annie, can I ask you a favor?" Another star appeared.

"...What is it?"

I let out a slow sigh. "What I'm about to tell you, keep it between us."

"Alright." She looked anxious. "What is it?"

"...I know nothing about my past. My parents, birthday, what I did, anything. That's why my card says I'm three." I looked down at her eyes and blinked.

_Yeah, I do trust her with this._

"About six months ago, I woke up underground in some abandoned subway. Some tech wiped my memory clean, and I had only the basics of intellect and my instincts."

Her expression remained blank. I chose to leave Cuttlefish and Agent 3 out of it.

"I was told by a robot that I could reach some 'promised land' if I went and found some pieces of a machine in the subway. So I did, but the problem was that they built a blender. 'Course, I wasn't getting in that."

"You-"

"Hold on. I found a hole in the ceiling and worked my way up. Once I did, I was on the surface. On a statue that almost blasted everything with something I couldn't tell you. I stopped it. Kinda."

"Kinda?" Annie started to look suspicious.

"Remember that time Pearl shrieked out in the middle of the ocean and passed it off as a publicity stunt? Yeah, I was there, and that scream sunk the statue."

I didn't see any flash of recognition pass on her face, so I guessed she was underground when that happened. Like most others.

I continued, speculating as I went. "Really, the entire subway should be flooded now, but I saw some really high-tech stuff as I went up, so maybe not. Oh yeah, and that phone thing was powering up the statue. It seemed... sentient? Somehow? But anyway, it said something about 'primordial ooze,' but I didn't really catch all of it."

Annie was looking more confused than anything by now.

"I think the blender was going to use my DNA... or... something..." I was ranting. I knew that entirely well, but I was on to something, so I was going to keep going. "You could only really get those pieces if you were really good at firing a gun, so a lot of others would have died of like, starvation.

"I saw some other guy get attacked by a couple of green Octolings I saw underground — they were called Sanitized for some reason — so I helped him out and brought him to my apartment — you saw him — but I'd never seen them on the surface before..." I trailed off. I came to a grave conclusion.

"And... and now that I think about it, maybe they'll head after you, too."

Annie put her elbow on the table and her forehead in her hand. She blinked a couple of times. "You're kidding, right?" She said with dead seriousness.

"...Sadly, no," I said. "I couldn't make this up if I tried. Come on, you wanna ask the guy I saved? His name is Jacob, but... he's asleep, maybe tomorrow."

Annie put her hand back down and leaned forward. "Jacob? Was there... anything more he said? About his name?"

I didn't really process that statement. I was staring at my feet and too lost in thought about when he was attacked. "Hey, Annie," I said again, looking back at her. "Can you do me another favor?"

"What is it this time?"

"I'll... try to find a way back down there. I-If you want to, can you... come with me? So we can try to stop any more attacks?"

She stayed silent for a while.

_I can't believe I'm asking someone else to go through what I did._

"I-It's fine if you don't!" I said, panicking. "I know it's dangerous down there, and-"

"Nah, I'll go." The sentence was aggressively casual. Like she didn't know what she was getting herself into.

Which she didn't.

"But-"

"I'll go," she said again, with the same tone and composure.

"...In that case, I'll tell you when I have something. What's your number?"

* * *

**The ellipses are strong with this one. There was a lot of dialogue in this chapter.  
Anyway, how was this chapter? I would imagine it would be an odd one since 90% of it is about stuff you already know.**

**And it feels so good to be back.**


	9. Who Was I?

**Okay. Sorry again. I haven't updated my other story with another improvement. It's just that I'm trying to get back into the swing of things and relaxing after finals.**

**...and definitely not because I've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in my free time.**

***cough***

* * *

And then I headed back to much apartment to get some well-deserved sleep.

By the looks of things, Jacob and I came to an unspoken agreement: he'd use the couch at night with his inferior regular sleep schedule, and I'd lock myself up in my room while everyone else was going about their lives.

I closed my curtains but there was still a crack that light was seeping through.

...I taped it with some complementary tape the building provided for some reason.

Then I woke up. At sunset.

Yay me. I liked the sky at night better anyway.

_I asked Annie to come with me to Deepsea right after I told her they might come after her?_

I didn't think about it too much since a part of me was glad I wouldn't be alone down there. She was the only person I could ask, really.

The old Cuttlefish guy wouldn't do me much good. All he did down there was not shut up. If it wasn't for Pearl and Marina, I would have gone insane.

_Right! The captain! I need to head back there!_

The communicator thingy was holed up in my drawer, like always. I turned it on, unlocked it, and noticed that he sent a message telling me to head over there at noon.

"Of course," I quietly muttered to myself. After checking the window again, I saw that the sun was technically still up, but not for long, though.

So I jumped out of my window again. It's sadly becoming a casual thing for me.

* * *

"Sorry. I was asleep. Did you find anything?" I tried to act casual, as if I didn't respond at a horrible time.

He stared at me with his gigantic eyes for a moment. "...Yes." He pulled the flash drive out of his pocket and handed to me. It smelled weird. I stuffed it in my own pocket. "I told them that Agent 3 found it. It took a while, but they... uh... decrypted it."

You'd think that he of all people should be at least a little computer literate, holding this sketchy secret agent business.

I guess I can't blame him. I'm no better with those things than he is. I just quoted Annie when I told him the problem.

"Oh, yeah. And one more thing. About those green sanitized girls we saw down in the subway? I saw some... lurking up here." I left Jacob out of the story since he'd probably want to interrogate him. I didn't want him to get mixed up in this.

He shifted his weight to his cane. "You did, eh?"

"Also, I'm trying to find a way back there to stop it. Any ideas?"

"Hmm..." He scratched his beard and I'm pretty sure something fell out of it. After a bit of thought, he said, "Would it be fine if you got in touch with Agent 3?"

The thought wasn't appealing, since the last time we met, we kinda fired guns at each other on an elevator.

...and the time before that, we fired guns at each other on an Octarian floating platform.

I still had no choice but to accept. Agent 3 seemed to have known the layout well. He was on the outskirts of the subway the whole time. Probably. "Fine. I said. He'd be giving me a message on this thing, or...?"

He nodded in confirmation.

"Understood. Thank you, Captain," I said flatly. I turned around, and immediately, my phone in my other pocket buzzed. Annie was calling me. I looked back to make sure the door was closed and jogged out onto the sidewalk before answering. "Hey." I walked back to my place as I spoke with her.

"Just to make sure, we're both day-sleepers now, right?"

"Mm. Hey, did you ever find out what happened to the teens that collapsed the whole cave?" I warily rounded a corner, keeping alert as I went.

"No, but probably the guy that nearly found us got them. I'm expecting to see a news report about it sometime soon. Anyway, about the flash drive..."

_So that's why she called._

"Yeah, just got it back. I... ran it through with somebody I knew who was good with computers. You wouldn't want to see him, he's disgusting." I was desperately hiding my ties to the NSS. "I wiped off the flash drive, though. It still smells funny. I'll head over to your place now, alright?"

"Perfect. Meet you there... here. Bye."

She hung up.

_I haven't seen a single thing on here. Oh no._

I'd have to keep my reactions indifferent to make it seem like I saw them already. Shouldn't be too hard.

I super jumped to Annie's building and found myself in the same situation as before. The doors were visibly locked. I sighed in disappointment and walked back to the side of the building, where the dumpster was still where I left it. I hopped on top of it when I head the window opening. Annie was poking her head outside of it. I stopped climbing and nervously waved.

"Ahh, so that's how you got up here!" She looked across. "Whoa, that's a wide jump. Did you really...?"

I looked at the gap again. "Not looking forward to doing it again, but here we are."

"Hmm." Anime put her elbows on the windowsill. "Wait a moment, I'll bring you something." And with that, she disappeared back into the unlit hall.

I hopped off of the slanted lid of the dumpster and leaned against the wall. Out of habit, I looked up. The moon wasn't overhead quite yet, but I saw a couple of stars that were particularly bright.

"Hey!" Annie whispered loudly. She threw one end of a rope out of the window. I could easily reach the knot.

"You... have this? Why?" I said. I grabbed it anyway and planted my feet on the wall.

She pulled me up. "Don't question it. It helped, didn't it? Now what's on the flash drive?"

I had already prepared for this question. "See for yourself." We headed into her apartment.

A total of one new box was opened, which I assumed the rope came from. My suspicions were confirmed when she threw it back in.

"Here," I said, handing her the flash drive.

Without a word, she plugged it into her computer and turned it on. "Alright, what do we have here?" She scrolled through the files and opened one while I pulled over the spinning office chair again. Didn't look like she wanted to sit, so I took it again. "This... is a lunch plan. Well. I guess it makes sense, but why the heck was it encrypted?"

"Secret recipes?"

"Whatever. Anyway, next." She opened another one.

This one caught my attention.

"Eileen Octrope." Annie read. It was a file on a soldier. One of the big ones, the daughter of Akash.

She kept talking and reading through it, but I couldn't stop staring at the image that wasn't there before. Was it somehow encrypted, too?

Eileen, in the picture, was wearing sunglasses, which was normal and great at hiding identity.

_So why do I feel like I have seen her before?_

The feeling was stronger than it was with Annie. Way stronger. I felt something itching in the back of my mind. Like if I just kept staring at it, it would reach out and pull something from my locked-up memories and show it to me.

As I sat there, wide-eyed, Annie clicked away from the file. "Hey, I know I just gave you this, but can I keep this for now? I feel like I need to explore this a bit more."

"Huh?" It took me a while to process what she said. That entire experience was surreal. "Yeah, go ahead," I said on a whim. "I-I should go now, sorry!" I stood up and walked out the door. I'm not sure if Annie followed.

I wasted no time in hopping out of the window and running away.

_The image did give me something. Finally, after six long months of remembering nothing, I have one tiny remnant of my past._

_But it scares me. All it is is another image of Eileen holding a hand out to me. I don't know why, when, where. _

_When I met Annie and felt that familiarity, I was afraid, but I had no way to confirm my fears_

_I have no doubts now._

_I had a connection to the Octrope family. Directly. What did I do? Who was I?_

* * *

**Hoo, final Splatfest next month, huh? I must prepare myself for the lore dump that will almost certainly ruin some things I'm planning.**


	10. Events that Occurred in Order

_Okay, Sky, _I tried to reassure myself, _It can't have been that big of a deal. If it was, someone would have said something by now. All I have to do is keep yet another secret. Like I've been doing these past six months._

More importantly is that Annie is actually probably related to Akash. But I made the decision to trust her already. If what I heard from the man himself is true, she probably deserted the army a long while back, meaning she doesn't associate with them anymore.

I opened my eyes and found myself near Inkopolis Plaza. The old hub of the city, moved somewhere else once a large portion of the road was stolen by Octavio as a ridiculous statement. The government tried to hide it with roadwork, but it eventually came back. I know myself that it was the NSS that returned it.

My Octo Shot, the recreational replica, was holstered by my waist. It was like I was one of those Inklings from two years ago that moved here 'cause of the Turf War fad.

Well, it's not really a fad anymore.

The plaza was very quiet and very deserted. The lowering sun was at just the right angle to illuminate it properly.

I strolled by some of the shops, trying to distract myself from the situation. One of them had an old "Open 24/7" sign on it. It was the weapon shop. Ammo Knights, which must've moved when the consumers did.

I went ahead and took another look at Inkopolis Tower. It was an odd structure. Like Deca Tower, except less ad screens and a better ground-level foundation. I never understood the point of building a tower and mainly using the bottom floor. I took another deep breath

_Ah. Yeah, that did help me take my mind off of things._

I could think more rationally about it. All this knee-jerk fear became curiosity in an instant. There was nothing to be afraid of. Who I was isn't who I am.

I am Sky. Not a soldier anymore. So I decided I would look at it from another person's standpoint. Since that wasn't me, I just wanted to learn more about a particularly interesting soldier.

_Yeah. That sounds right._

Then it hit me that I might possibly find something on this interesting soldier in Deepsea. Depends on if they keep records down there.

There was nothing I could do about it now, and I was expecting a message from Agent 3, so I chose to do another Turf War out of sheer boredom.

And to further take my mind off of it.

* * *

_Huh. Ranked Battles. What are those?_

After descending to the basement, I saw another section of it labeled with a sign hanging from the ceiling. Judging by the name, it would actually count for something other than fame and style points.

I gave it a try. The lobbies were still locked and needed my card to allow me in, but there was a level requirement for these ones.

It really was like I was playing a video game.

The second I walked in, there was a match found. Something on the lobby's monitor said "Tower Control—Starfish Mainstage". Under it was the team list. My bird-with-a-motor-tic was there, filling out my team, then below that was the enemy team.

They looked suspiciously like Masked Mayhem.

Further supporting this was the excessive complaining of the two standing next to the screen, almost blocking it.

The third teammate I had was Jacob. I wasn't too shocked to see him there. He seemed unfazed by the enemy team, but then again, he was new to the city, so he must've had less experience with them than I did. Which was one match.

"Oh, hey," Jacob said to me. "Been a while. You usually sleep at day?"

"Ever since a couple of nights ago." I never took my eyes off of the screen. It was pretty late by normal people standards, but not ridiculously so, so now was one of the few times our waking hours overlapped.

He leaned in uncomfortably close to whisper, "What's with them?"

"Masked Mayhem," I responded. "The enemy team has supposedly never lost a match since their debut." I checked the weapon in his hand, which was, thankfully, a legal replica.

He leaned back in the couch, resting his arm on the cushion. "Heh. Looks like I might have a challenge other than my own team, now. You better be good, Sky." He reeked of overconfidence, but we were going to lose. If those two by the screen were anything to go by, they already gave up.

At least he was good. The sanitized Octolings wouldn't have come after him otherwise. I just hoped he was good with Tower Control.

That was in the rulebook, too, but I felt like I'd be better defending the tower instead of riding it.

The off-colored circle on the floor opened like a camera lens, and I hopped in first. The swim was longer this time, but the whole tunnel was moving like one of those airport conveyor belts. Still barely lit.

With another incline, I emerged on the spawn pad. My hair was blue. It still threw me off every time I had to see it. I shook it off and looked around.

The sunset was beautiful off to the right, and the first of the smaller stars crept into view as the sky slowly turned from its red to a deep purple.

My name felt more and more right every time I bothered to look up.

I closed my eyes and focused on the sounds. Having the best reflexes at the start of a match would give anyone an advantage.

The speakers clapped, and I was off. Somebody gave a path with a Charger shot, which I happily took to get closer to the tower itself. I swam up the ramp on the right, ran forward as I fired in a wide arc in front of me, and instead of getting on the short block they call a tower, pivoted and hid behind it.

And who else would approach other than Dualies. They came from the right, so I went left and got on the tower, using the weird pole in its center for its minimal, yet existent cover.

I fired at them before they could react, prompting them to roll in towards our side. Jacob finished them off. "Nice!" He yelled in his mild accent. "Keep doing that!"

_Where are the others? _I thought. For some reason, they were lagging behind. Scared? Most likely. Ugh.

I saw a laser in the edges of my vision and ducked as the green stream of ink flew above me. That was the second time I'd completely dodged one of their shots. I retaliated with a bomb thrown at the gunman. Gunwoman? Whatever. They retreated backwards, buying us precious little time.

"Take my place!" I yelled to Jacob. I ran off as the tower stopped at the first checkpoint.

The someone with the Charger on my team took a perch to my left, so I went right to open up more options. Jacob swam up the tower and continued the countdown as I started a cautious attack from the front of the reappearing Dualies, who, predictably, rolled right, away from the clump. I read the roll and splatted them easily.

I started moving back to the tower to use its cover, but it started moving backwards. The laser pointed at me again, I jumped backwards, ruining their attempt to lead the shot.

Something from behind hit me, and the string led into me being splatted. Whoever it was continued to ascend the tower and support their teammate on it. The two high-fived.

I respawned, a weird term that these people use, and rushed in again on the same path, chucking a bomb from the high ground onto the tower. I splatted one of them, but the other got back on. Dualies appeared out of nowhere and shredded through the two complainers who were grouped together.

The Charger of the other team was slowly moving forward. Jacob dodged another shot.

I had to give this Charger credit, though. If we couldn't dodge these shots as quickly as we did, they would have an astonishing hit-miss ratio on us.

I went to challenge Dualies, going down to avoid the one on the tower. They got me; I was restricted in horizontal movement.

Jacob came from the side and caught the Charger by surprise. They were out of the situation. Dualies wrecked both of the complainers again, and we were put in a horrible position as the tower proceeded ever closer to its goal.

Dualies and their partner on the Tower were covering every possible area of approach. I tried another bomb, but then they both focused their fire on it until it slowed mid-flight and clattered on the ground. I'm not sure if that was entirely legal, but oh well. At least I was right about something.

We lost. Badly. I quietly swam back with the conveyor belt reversed this time.

These four were more of a horror in Tower Control than in Turf War. And they did it in _sunglasses_. At _sunset_!

Granted, I constantly wear heels, but at least it doesn't impair my vision. Were these people just used to wearing them in the dark?

...On another note, based on what I saw from Jacob, his particular fighting style was similar to Annie's, but he was a bit more cautious, allowing him to think before going in.

Annie just usually wings it. It works, most of the time.

Jacob appeared worse than Annie, but it was by so little, it was almost unnoticeable.

I took a deep breath once I got back in the lobby and instantly regretted it. Like I said, they reeked of tryhard sweat.

I went straight to the corner and leaned on the wall. Like some others I have seen before, the complainers shuffled out nervously in shame. I grinned in amusement.

Jacob was the last one to return. "Damn," he said once he got in. "You were right. They _are _good!"

"That was my second time dealing with them," I said. The communicator vibrated in my pocket. "Anyway, I got other plans."

"Aight, I was gonna go one more with you, but whatev'. See ya." He pulled his old Octarian phone out as I left.

I left the lobby and went one step further; I completely exited the square. Security cameras might be there.

I guessed that the area right outside my apartment would be safe. I jumped there, stood at the corner of the building, unlocked the pseudo-phone, and read the message.

* * *

3

Hey, the captain said to only send this to you. Said there was an issue with the subway that's, like, cursed. Anyway, I have free time basically whenever nowadays, so what works for you?

* * *

Well then. That was convenient.

* * *

8

Now?

3

That was fast. Inkopolis Square?

* * *

_I was _just_ there, really?_

Before jumping, I headed up to my vacant apartment and replaced the replica with the actual Octo Shot I had, hoping the authorities wouldn't notice. It paid to be prepared.

From there, I locked my door again.

This time, I super jumped from my windowsill instead of just falling to the sidewalk and then jumping.

I landed and, looking at the dwindling multitude of people out now,couldn't tell which one I was supposed to be looking for.

* * *

8

I made it.

* * *

Glancing around, I saw one person react and pull the important rectangle from their pocket.

The more I stared at him, the more generic he looked. Average height, common haircut, a frickin' normal shirt, the whole thing. I guess it helped him blend in? Maybe?

He approached me before I could approach him. "Hi!" He exclaimed. "...Is that the only thing you wear?" My Deepsea outfit.

_What a way to greet an old friend._

"No." I looked away in mild embarrassment. "My apartment gave me some free t-shirts." I literally only wore those when I was washing these.

He laughed nervously, then something came to his mind. "Oh, right! We're in public now. Simon." He extended his arm for a handshake.

"...Sky." I returned the gesture.

He took a fleeting glance upwards. "Ah, I get it. Alright, so where did you see those green idiots?"

* * *

**Question for you guys, how am I doing with this? Nothing specific, just anything. First-person view, story, characters, whatever.**


	11. Down Under

**(To xXsilverp00lXx:) Just gonna acknowledge your review about ships you wouldn't expect. Anything I could possibly say here gets into spoiler territory, for lack of a better term.**

**I'm serious, I cannot think of any proper response I could say that wouldn't spoil anything.**

**Thanks for the feedback, though.**

**Anyway, on to the chapter.**

* * *

The more people I met, the more I came to realize that I was a short girl. Literally the only person I knew that was shorter than I was was Pearl, and that's kinda a given.

I kept leading Simon to the same dead end alley I found Jacob in. We were close, just a few blocks away. My hands were buried in my pockets, and I was leaning forward. I probably looked shady as heck, but I didn't care.

The cracks between the buildings gave way to the sunlight from the setting sun to the right. Every time I stepped into a patch of it, I felt a bit warmer. The sky overhead was a bright orange, and the horizon to the left had an outline of the first blues of night.

I looked up and brushed my hair away from my face. There was nothing ahead of me, so I closed my eyes and thought.

_Annie is likely Annie Octrope. The fourth daughter of Akash. This particularly interesting soldier- oh whatever, it's me. Just not me now._

_I had some connection with them. It might've been small. Eileen could have been just helping me up after I fell down._

_On the other hand, I may have been seeing them daily. There is no way to tell as of now._

_Do I think less of Annie because of this? No. No, I do not. In fact, since she fought at Sharktown, she was completely dissociated with the Octropes. It's just a name at this point._

Waiting would be the best course of action. I couldn't just ask for the flash drive again, not after I ran away to keep myself in check. She thought I had seen it all already.

I came to a sudden stop on the sidewalk as I remembered why I was there. I looked around. "Yeah, this one right here." The alley to the right was the one I found Jacob in.

Simon strolled in like it was an everyday walk for him, which it probably was. "Really?" He started visually tearing apart the alley, rapidly glancing around. "How long ago was this?"

"Uh, like a whole day ago."

He examined the ground. Since when did he become a junior detective? "That's why there aren't any clues I can see right now. Any idea where they went?"

I put my hand behind my neck and the other to the right. "That... way?"

"Well, that's a start," he said, getting back on his feet. "Hmm... so it was a subway, right? Maybe... no, that's crazy. But..."

"But?" I interjected.

"I heard something about an abandoned subway near the square from a friend a while ago. Might be worth checking out," he decided. "I'll head over. Follow me." And with that train wreck of a conversation, he jumped away. I followed, like he told me to.

Simon was directly in front of me as I landed on the jump point of the square. "That," he said, pointing to a quiet corner to the right of the tower, opposite to Grizzco. "C'mon." We started to cross the short distance.

"Hey!" Someone shouted abruptly, "You're NightFall!"

It took me a painfully long time to realize that whoever that was was talking to me. NightFall was my battle name. Two people approached me unexpectedly, a boy and girl, both Octoling adults — which meant 14 or older here.

They caught me off guard. I wasn't expecting that at all."E-Eh?" I was even stammering my confusion noises, that's how bad I was with PR.

Simon stopped, grinning sweetly at the two and completely oblivious to my social anguish. They didn't notice him. I was, unfortunately, the center of attention.

"NightFall, right?" The girl continued. "Super good one? Dodger of Gemini?"

_Gemini who?_

_Wait, the Masked Mayhem member. I guess that one's the Charger._

"Y-yeah... me. N-NightFall..." I managed to get that out, at least.

"Hey, we've seen so many of your battles!" Exclaimed her partner in crime. "You're really underrated right now, like, almost completely overshadowed by Masked Mayhem."

_This is good, _I thought. _They'll keep rambling and I won't have to say a thing and humiliate myself._

He continued his mini speech. "Ever since that first battle with them, like, the closest match so far, we've seen how, just... technical you are. Most people stop with getting their reflexes and aim up." He looked at the tower, for some reason.

Then she took over. "Yeah, and you take that further with advanced maneuvers and traps. Any tips?" She awaited a response, eagerly leaning forward and bouncing on her heels.

"Uh...!" I legitimately had none. I just run out on the the battlefield and think quickly, without any real reason to describe it. A few agonizing seconds passed as I racked my mind for anything. "U-Use the sub weapon?" Yeah, I was reaching pretty hard.

"Sub weapon, sub weapon. Like the bombs?" He said. He hit his fist against his palm as if that was a great revelation.

"Yes, stupid," teased the bubbly one. They were actually taking that obvious one, to my surprise. Even Simon looked baffled at their eagerness. "You're always the one saying she traps 'em with the bombs on one side and the gun on the other. Then she bends around, dodges their shots... Flexibility. Agility. That, too!"

These two were some of the last people in the square. It was approaching that half-hour limbo between the day and night people. "Aaanyway," I said, taking a step back and forcing a fake smile, "I have some... things... to do. Bye?" I hoped that didn't blow up in my face.

"Right," she squealed, completely doing a 180 on that reaction. "See ya!"

I turned around, not daring to look back as I heard their footsteps leaving. That really burnt me out.

"...Looks like you have a bit of a... fanbase," observed Simon. "Sheesh, how good are you?"

I left that question in the air as I breathed a sigh of relief. I couldn't answer that one. "Wh...Where was that subway?"

"Ah, right. This way." He started to move away, once again, to the upper right corner. I shook off the discomfort and jogged after him.

He peered over the railing blocking a path leading down into a tunnel I didn't recognize. "Any security cameras?" That just cemented the legal questionability of the whole NSS. They saved the city, so they might get a pass.

"Not that I know of." What else was I supposed to say, really. "If there are some, they're hidden pretty well."

"Alright then, c'mon." He swung his body over the railing even though that wasn't a definitive no.. I followed again, but reluctantly this time, both because of moral reasons, and also because I really didn't want to go back down there.

I turned left behind him, and there was only more ramp going down. The tunnel was wider and more visible than the one Annie and I went through, made of stone or concrete, I couldn't tell. White arrows were painted on the floor of this very linear path that kept descending.

I had no idea what awaited me down there, but I kept going, and calmly at that. As much as it pained me to not be able to see the sky, I had to do it, lest the sanitized come back.

"Hey," Simon said, turning his head around. "Sorry for putting this on you, but can you lead the way? I didn't bring a weapon."

_And suddenly, this becomes an escort mission._

I kept going and took the front from him. I unholstered the Octo Shot. Ahead was more tunnel, more ramp, and more white arrows. I slowed my pace. "What was it like down here?" I inquired without looking at him. "For you, at least."

"Well, uh. We fought." I winced. I was hoping he didn't bring that up. "And then we weren't. Woke up in some translucent yellowish liquid. Don't think I was supposed to. Wake up, I mean. I couldn't see the end of it, or why I was there. Maybe they tried to erase my memory like with you. I guess I got lucky and escaped it."

_Lucky indeed._

There was still no visible end to the tunnel. "My guess is that it could only happen when I wasn't awake. Anyway, I woke up after I heard some really loud screaming from my headset. It was the captain, but I couldn't respond with a broken mic. He was saying something about targets and balloons, never bothered to ask."

"One of the stations, I guess. I saw a lot of balloons down there."

"Some weird sound was playing from outside the headset, but I didn't get any of it. I think it had something to do with the memory wipe. Then after a while, the room drained, and I was getting my bearings, then a hatch opened under me. Hey, look, something's ahead."

My head shot up from a constant ground stare. He was right, the ramp looked to be ending.

We kept going until the corridor opened up into an abandoned subway. It wasn't Deepsea; it looked... less abandoned. Recently deserted, while Deepsea was completely devoid of maintenance.

"Well, we made it somewhere, but..." Simon trailed off.

There was a rail ahead with am unmoving train on it blocking both ends of the tunnel. There were lockers on a wall behind us and lights that didn't hurt to look at. The widened area was a lot more colorful. Red lines streamed across the train and the walls, with a green ceiling and a shop area to the left. The colors were faded, but at least there wasn't any rubble on the ground. Other than that, the walls were grey with a bit of white.

"Hey, there's something up there." I pointed out a carved out section of the wall on the other side of the train. It was level with the top of it.

With a confused sigh, he started to approach the train. "Nowhere else to go, I guess."

I then followed him to the side and hopped up onto where the window met the train's wall. I clambered up to the roof, retaking my earned position in front of Simon. I found my balance as I stood up, and thankfully, the train didn't sway.

Deep inside that carved portion of the wall was an elevator inside of the far end. It was open, as if waiting for someone to enter.

"Nothing to lose," I muttered. I stepped into the poorly-lit elevator with Simon, then it started to move down.

I stepped back to the corner and gripped my Octo Shot tighter. As much as I hate to admit it, I was... kinda nervous.

After a short eternity of moving down, it stopped, and the doors opened again.

There was a large glass wall ahead that extended to the ceiling with a control panel in front of it. Beyond the wall was a cubic room with all surfaces tiled with white marble except for the glass one.

"That... that's the place with that the liquid." Simon went up to it and peered inside. "That's the hatch that dropped me." He was referring to group of four off-color tiles in the dead center of the floor. "I jumped from below and pulled it back open. Then I went through there." A nearly invisible door on the right side of the room. "And found you with the captain in that blender."

I kept watching for anything that might attack. "Staircase. Let's go." No, it wasn't going to attack, I just suggested that we go down the only one in the room. It was next to the glass wall.

I went first — like I was supposed to — and, at the bottom of the steep, narrow staircase, there was a glowing lever on the wall in front of me.

There was nothing left to do but flip it. The wall to the right slid down.

And once it was in the floor, I saw the earliest thing I could remember. The room I woke up in. I found myself back in Deepsea. With the same faulty light, same painted-on fake doors, even that cone I tested myself with.

I shuddered. "F-found it."

"I shouldn't take you further in," Simon said, "Let's head back."

* * *

"Sorry for that," Simon apologized at the square. "And... thanks for sticking with me. I'll see if I can get the team on this tomorrow."

"Mm." I nodded and turned away, facing Deca Tower. My eyes shut as I mentally prepared myself for going back there again. Then I looked up.

The sky was a deep shade of purple. The sun was down, and the brightest stars started to become visible. I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

"What, found something already?" Annie sounded lively.

"Y-yeah. When are you free?"


	12. A Lot of Talking

**Hey guys. Look. Cover art. I actually have cover art finally! It's pixel art 'cause, like I said, it's the only type of art I can do. Still isn't great, but it's something.**

**It took way longer for my other story, though. Didn't have any until, like, chapter 40.**

**Here we go, chapter time.**

* * *

For some reason, Annie's weapon wasn't an Octo Shot. It was one of the Hero Shot copies from the training camp after the Flash. Was she allowed to keep that? I gave my Dualies back, so why...?

Eh, it didn't matter. As long as it matched my color. Purple again.

Her outfit looked thrown together in a span of seconds, which it probably was. She wore an old Octoling soldier uniform, with the tank top and useless belt with a skirt. But under that, there was a purple t-shirt and jeans. She didn't care how tacky it looked, and neither did I. It worked.

I tightened my ink pack so it wouldn't fall off. It was pretty much my serious ink tank, and it held more, so I kept it. I flipped the switch on the wall again, then the other wall to the right lowered down.

"And here," I said, gesturing to the new area, "is where I almost lost my sanity." That was joke, but I hoped Annie understood. She laughed lightly, but it was one of those melancholy laughs.

It was kinda frustrating that freedom was a room away from where I first woke up, but it wasn't like I could do something about lowering it from that side.

It seemed like the wall would stay down as long as the switch did, so we stepped over. The weirdest nostalgia wave washed over me. I did not like this place. "Yeah, probably avoid the light before it sets you on fire," I warned. Annie almost stepped under it as a spark flew from it.

I was giving a tour of my least favorite place on the planet. "And to your left, you'll see some fake doors," I told her.

"You... weren't kidding, huh..." That lively attitude she displayed on the phone was entirely lost now. She felt more... sad. At least I had someone to sympathize with me. I held back a smile.

"So from here," I continued, "I went through this train." Everything was the same. It was the same dilapidated subway.

We kept going through as it opened up into a rail. The vault far ahead was gone, since I opened it a while ago.

Annie made a noise, something that sounded like she was choking. I whirled around. "I-I'm fine, keep going." She smiled at me, and I felt a bit warmer.

Annie and I skipped past the part where I shot those crates for the key, and then we reached the long tunnel that extended for a while before reaching the place with Mr. Evil Phone.

"Yep," I groaned. "Still pitch black. This tunnel goes straight, don't worry about running into anything."

"H-how long were you down here? I-I just can't imagine..."

I couldn't see anything, so I didn't try to turn around and read her expression. "A few weeks at most. But it gets better. There's a working train down here, and people in it. They were all stuck down here, too, and..." I paused, coming to an insane conclusion. "We can... get them out of here. We know a way out..."

I originally thought to come down here on the off-chance that they had info on me and to stop the surface lurkers, but that felt like it took priority.

I saw light up ahead. "We're almost there. Hey, uh, do you mind if we do a mass exodus before anything else?"

"H-Huh? Oh, yeah, fine." I could see her behind me, but only her faint silhouette.

"Thanks, Annie." I grinned in the shadows. "For that, and, well, everything at this point. This place was, like, some crazy lab that never let you out. Even after passing, you just get blended." I sighed very audibly. "Not many people know about this. About me. You're one of the few."

She didn't respond.

"Trying to adjust to the surface was hard, but you helped me with that." _Even though I was up there longer than she was._

I was almost positive that I knew her before the memory wipe, but there was no reason for her to remember me. I definitely looked very different than I did now, and my personality has certainly changed.

So I treated her like a new person. To me now, she was.

Th light was within reach. We were about to reach the central... area... place that I forgot the name of. I squinted as we entered the place that used to house Mr. Evil Phone. The remains of the blender were still there from when Simon punched it to bits.

"Yeah, we're here. Don't make yourself at home, this specific place sucks." From the interior, it looked like a tall, abandoned warehouse from the apocalypse. It was dreary, grey, and cold.

I climbed onto the platform again and looked up out of habit. The hole that Simon made in the ceiling was gone. It looked like it never happened in the first place. Completely new. As new as this rat hole could look.

Annie wasn't saying anything. She leaned against the back wall on the platform and slid down until her knees were up to her face. She looked really deep in thought. Her eyes were fixed to a point on the ground, but she wasn't looking for something.

I had no idea how to react. "Well, we just wait for the train now." I caught a glimpse of something shiny in a locker on the opposite wall. With nothing else to do, I made my way over there, almost tearing my leg open on the broken glass. The noise of my heels hitting the floor was the only one in the room.

The source of the glint was... I don't know what exactly I was looking at, but it was some hybrid between a toothpick and a ball.

_This isn't a trap, is it?_

The small locker it was in was the only open one, so it seemed like it. I warily pulled it out using the nozzle of my Octo Shot and let it clatter to the floor. The locker didn't snap shut, so maybe someone just forgot it there?

I picked up the toothball slowly. It was light, even though it looked golden. Couldn't be a bomb, then.

For some reason, it felt like getting that monstrosity should've been harder.

Oh well.

The warehouse was completely silent, so the train still wasn't any closer. The rhythmic click of my heels on the floor resonated again as I went back to Annie. "Want this thing I just found?" I offered. I couldn't see any practical use for the ball pick thing, so I had no reason to keep it.

"Hm? Uh, sure... thanks?" I dropped it in her open palm. She was still sitting at the wall. I leaned my backagainst it and propped a foot up. "...You really remember nothing?" She asked.

"Nothing from before six-ish months ago," I admitted. "But sometimes, I remember things. Nothing substantial yet." Other than the chilling Eileen picture, everything I remembered made no sense, like they were pages in a book but with 90% of the words gone. They were all from the tiny eraser Mem Cake trinkets.

Annie blinked at the ground. "That's... that's... terrible..." Her voice started to break, and she forced her head down into her knees. Was she crying...?

Even if she was, I had zero idea how to handle that type of situation, so I regrettably stayed silent for that moment. The situation was never one I had been in before, so I had to guess my way to the end.

All I did was sit next to her, but that seemed to help.

After a bit, I risked saying one more thing. I wasn't sure if she was crying because of my memory loss or the fact I had to spend quite a bit of time down here, so I tried to lump them both together. "But it was worth it. Since I escaped, my life's been amazing..." I let my head lean back, trying to think of a good next sentence. "Sometimes, I wonder who I was, but I don't think I want to go back to living underground." I reached a hand out and let it hover in front of a faulty light. "I don't want to be who I was before."

Having someone actually sympathize with my situation to the point of tears was a weird, but eye-opening experience. After Marina dropped me off at Inkopolis, I tried to suppress my memories of Deepsea and focus on my life on the surface. Seeing Annie like this made me realize how terrible I had it, completely cut off from society and forced to live with a bunch of people the system rejected, of which I could speak with three.

"The reason I named myself Sky, in the Inkling language, was because of how breathtaking it was the first time I saw it." The Inkling and Octarian words for sky were different. "Not just the first time. Every time. I knew it was something I never saw before."

"Y-you don't get it..." Annie was regaining her composure. That was good. "Nobody else had to go through this. I'm... sorry I couldn't be here for you."

I was silently taken aback. "You didn't know about here before I told you. You're not at fault at all." I turned to look at her, but she kept staring at the ground. Her eyes were still really shiny and quivering. I turned away and chose to stay silent this time and leave her to her own thoughts.

As soon as the train's whistle could be heard from the tunnel, Annie shot up and gained an expression that was both determined and miserable.

It surprised me even more. I hadn't seen that side of her before that point. "W-wait, hold on!" I pleaded. Seconds earlier, she was sitting on the ground, sobbing because of me. I didn't want her to force herself even more. "Annie, we can go back!"

She looked away so I could only see the back of her head. Her hair was still long. "No... Not without everyone else trapped down here. You went through this, I don't want anyone else to," she declared, marching to the edge of the platform.

I didn't know what to say. She didn't sound sad at all. What was with this girl?

I got on my feet, and by that I mean heels, and waited with her, uncomfortably pacing back and forth between the two rails.

The train's light was visible first. Annie stepped back and let it roll forward out of the tunnel and come to a stop.

Its door slid open, and I went in first. The train's interior was way better than the outside. Its seats were cushioned, if only a bit, and its temperature was... better.

"Hey... conductor." I forgot his name.

Because of course I did.


	13. Mass Exodus

**(To Grape 2:) Sorry if that last chapter sounded like a cliffhanger. It really wasn't meant to be. Sky only forget his name because she hadn't been down there in half a year.**

**Unless you were talking about something else in there, then ignore this.**

**Glad you're enjoying, though!**

—

I don't know what I was expecting, but the next few hours were a lot more boring than I thought they would be.

Conductor guy agreed to pick up everyone from each station, but he himself was a little hesitant to part with the train he'd been driving. The promise of the so-called "promise land" won him over, though. We were almost to the last station, so the train was getting crowded. The subway could fit everyone in one go. If there weren't many people at this last one.

I sat next to Annie at the back of the caboose under one of the heavily outdated advertisements. The seats felt like solid stone, so I kept fidgeting.

Annie was fine with them, though. She was leaning against her arm, staring out the window with a blank, unreadable stare. For the whole ride so far, she never said a word.

I was afraid to say something since I didn't know how she was feeling.

_C.Q. Cucumber, that's his name!_

Probably the last thing I should've randomly thought of, but whatever.

"We will arrive at the next station shortly," he said. Even though that wasn't prerecorded, it definitely sounded like it was.

"Hey, uh," Annie started. I nearly jumped out of my seat. "I never got to thank you back." She turned to look at me and smiled faintly. "For... for the same thing. Somehow, you also helped me adjust to the city."

I blinked, dumbfounded. Were we just going to completely forget her breakdown? "N-no worries..." I stammered.

The train slowed and stopped. As the last of the passengers trickled in to our car, C.Q. Cumber began his long lecture for, like, the hundredth time on why we're all gathering in here. It was in a language I couldn't speak.

When everyone was inside, we started moving again. The main station was near this one, so the ride wouldn't be very long.

Annie started talking again. Twice in the same five minutes. "Also, I've heard there'll be a protest tomorrow."

"Protest?" I started running my mind to figure out what it might be over. It didn't take long to reach a good guess. "About?"

"Us. Sorry to be the... bearer of bad news, I guess." Yep, I was right. "The older generation is kinda going crazy over us. They'll be gathering in the square. Try not to get mixed up in anything, I don't want you hurt."

Honestly, I thought that this would happen earlier. It's been a whole month. I really don't blame them, I understood where they were coming from.

But I couldn't help but feel... something. Mild anger? Probably.

Once again, the train stopped near the remains of the blender. Everyone started flowing out of the car, proceeding forward to the exit point at the front. Annie and I were last. "C'mon," I beckoned to her. Maybe we should've been in the front. It would be easier to lead them.

The line moved forward at an obnoxiously sluggish pace. "When tomorrow is this protest?" I asked.

"Like, all day," Annie said bluntly. "I'll be hiding in my room until it's over. I'd probably make things worse singlehandedly, to tell you the truth."

I decided not to ask how.

"So I assume the tower'll be closed for the day?" I wanted to find out as much as I could. We passed through another car.

Annie snickered. "Is that all you think about?" she joked. "No, the whole thing is A.I. run. Can't see why anybody'd be there, though."

"Income?" I suggested. The exit of the train was in front of us. The passengers were out there, everything from jellyfish abominations to Iso Padre to that fat guy that smelled... questionable. They kicked the blender pieces to the track on the other side.

C.Q. Cumber was the last one out, after me and Annie. He still wore his tiny conductor's hat as he waddled to the platform of the center station place.

For the first time, I saw that train completely shut down. Powerless.

_Good riddance, _I thought.

Annie, without saying a word, pushed through the crowd and proceeded to the other track. She was really taking the initiative. "This way," she said, dropping down. Nobody understood the words, but what they did understand was her pointing to the pitch-black tunnel.

"I'll take the rear!" I yelled to her. "Want this?" I held up my Octo Shot.

Annie shrugged. "Sure. I'll give it back!" I chucked it to her hand, and she gracefully caught it. Now she had two weapons, both looking wildly different. It seemed to complete the tacky hipster look she was pulling.

We pressed on through the dark tunnel with Annie at the front and me at the back. My unspoken purpose was to make sure nobody was dumb enough to get left behind, but they all cooperated in their rescue. It helped that C.Q. Conductor glowed a bit.

This guy... I didn't know where he stood in relation to Phone Guy. He always announced when the bomb strapped to me would explode in one of those tests, but it was never him that detonated it. It was always in a flat, emotionless tone, like he didn't care that I blew up.

But I guess he was numbed to the situation, with the several others that that went through it. How many were there, 10,008? Including me? Maybe he was down there for only... the last 50 or so. It chilled me to think about being stuck there that long. I probably took longer than most, since I ended up taking, like, the least efficient paths to the four thingies. I almost did all of the tests.

How many ended up blended, though? Did he witness any of them, or was I the first of those 50 to get the blender pieces?

I kept staring at him suspiciously as he inched forward. That little hat almost fell off with each lurch.

For some reason, the clutter of people started to slow down profusely. A few started to mumble in their vowel-centric language.

I shoved my way forward, squeezing though the little gaps between them. There was no use trying to communicate. I was already bilingual, I don't need a third.

"Annie?" I called as I dove between the fat guy and someone else. No response. People started moving backwards, for some reason.

The faint sound of shots being fired echoed down the tunnel. After hearing it, I broke into a sprint, not caring who I happened to run into. I dodged left and right, avoiding everyone unless there was no other way.

The crowd broke and revealed the first broken-down train. Annie was not there. With nobody in my way anymore, I kept sprinting forward, making a sharp turn to get out of the car and into the place where I first awoke.

To my utter dismay, the secret wall was completely shut.

No... She didn't reallly...?!

Leave us down here? I hoped to everything I knew that the answer was no.

If Simon was right, there was one more possible place. I got under the faulty light, careful to not shock myself because that would be bad, and jumped up, barely letting my fingers hook on to the ceiling tile the light was on.

With me being quite the lightweight, it took a terrifying extra few seconds for me to weigh it down and get it to hang open. From there, I let go with one of my hands and swung over to the ceiling it attached to. I pulled myself up quickly, as the trapdoor snapped shut as soon as I made it up.

I was in that white cube room with the glass wall. From the inside, it was... surprisingly spotless. Either the yellow liquid was a spot destroyer or the sanitized really cared about cleanliness. I guessed it was the former.

I spun around to look through the glass wall, and I had no idea what to think about the image.

Annie was thankfully there on the other side, which was reassuring, but there were also a load of sanitized in a clump fighting her. About 15 or so. Yeah, a lot.

They all split and started to fire at her, all with identical Octo Shots. One approached her, but she dodged their fire, kicked their weapon out of their hand, and grabbed them, using their body as a shield. She purposefully left them unsplatted.

That would be a really unethical move... if these guys weren't all mindless freaks.

She backed herself into a corner and held the body with one hand and my Octo Shot in the other. By this point, they all surrounded her, but she crouched down and leapt to the side, still holding the body. With my own Octo Shot, she tore through the two to the far right.

The glass was way too thick, I couldn't kick through like I did that one time with the thin metal. Trust me, I tried and didn't even crack it,

Out of the corner, she chose to forego the body shield, dropping them and splatting them with her Hero Shot.

Both of her hands were free, so she fired blindly behind her with both weapons, splatting four more in quick succession. The whole time, her face was blank. She hadn't noticed me.

Annie swam away from the eight left, who split once again. She aimed both weapons to two different ones, somehow hitting both of their heads perfectly with both streams of ink.

She chucked a bomb at a group of three, hitting the middle one in the legs. It caught all three of them in the blast.

She was by the staircase, so she dropped down, luring the last three over. I couldn't see that place from the white cube room, so I kicked the trapdoor back open and fell myself, back onto the ground by the broken train. Behind me, the crowd started to gather inside it, curiously investigating the noise.

And in front of me, the wall opened back up. Annie was standing there alone, with one hand on the lever and a puddle of ink spreading next to her.

I seriously had no idea how to respond. Were those the instincts she was suppressing? "You...You know I saw that, right?" I managed to say. That was... pretty badass, to say the least.

"Wha-" Annie looked flustered. "Really?" Oddly, she didn't ask how. She looked away. "H-how did it look?"

"Intimidating," I admitted as the crowd pressed forward. I'm not the greatest battle critic. "I'll, uh. Head back. To the back."

—

It took ages to get everyone up the elevator. I felt like a bellhop, always standing at the bottom of the shaft. I couldn't do much other than stare at the white cube room. I couldn't even call Annie at the top, since there wasn't any signal down there.

But that was earlier. After ushering them all out, we rested on one of the tables in the square. Annie and I chose to ignore all of the complications of being on the surface, like the gigantic language barrier and culture shock. They'd probably form their own little community in the city. I just hoped it wouldn't become a gang.

Dawn was starting to break. That night was simultaneously the most and least eventful night of my life. Nothing really happened, but at the same time, everything happened. If that makes sense.

For Annie, at least, she did a ton. Protected that crowd and shut herself in with those 15.

"Welp, I'm goin' to sleep," Annie said out of nowhere, standing up from her chair. "Try to not get into any trouble tomorrow. That protest will hopefully be shut down."

Yeah. The protest. Mild anger? Probably.


	14. Party Crashers

**So today I remembered that there is already a character that is canonically named Annie. This doesn't affect the story at all but still...**

**Whoops. **

* * *

Out of pure spite, I stayed up until midday.

Turns out it was mild anger. I don't know what witnessing the protest itself would do, but I just... felt like it.

My apartment building was close-ish to Deca Tower, so every time I peeked outside, people were marching in unruly formations, holding up and swinging their crudely-drawn signs like their lives depended on it.

I saw everything from a simple octopus crossed out to... very colorful swearing in, like, every language possible.

I fell back onto my bed again, pulling out my phone and messing around on it. This thing wasn't a thing back underground, I think, so almost every one of its functions was new to me.

The most intriguing one, though, was the one that played videos off of the internet.

People put the weirdest things online. I was uncomfortably close to seeing at least three major head injuries and two instances of random Inklings trying to flaunt their skill with their weapons.

I took pride in knowing I was still way better.

I sleepily turned it off and stretched out my limbs, yawning quietly. Then I took my free, baggy t-shirt I was wearing and pulled it back down. It almost reached my knees.

They were mocking my height, I swear. This is why I kept wearing those heels.

After peeking out the window again, I saw that the crowd was diminishing. The back of it was close. Annie was right, they _were_ gathering in the square.

Out of nowhere, my half-awake mind gave me a stupid idea that was too good to ignore.

I shut my window and closed the curtains, then replaced my sole t-shirt with the recently-washed Deepsea clothes.

After getting ahold of My Octo Shot and ink tank on my bedside table, I got out of my room to see Jacob reclining on the sofa. He had nothing better to do, apparently. It made sense.

I didn't ask for rent from him. The building completely forgot to bill me since we got back from the Flash. Maybe the owner was still in an emotional crisis.

Without acknowledging him, I proceeded to the door to the hallway and opened it up.

"Hold up," warned Jacob as he sat up and held his arm out. "Don't-"

"I know," I said bluntly without turning around. Before he could say anything else, I shut the door behind me and holstered the Octo Shot.

No, I wasn't planning to fire at the protesters. That was a surefire way to make things worse.

Since I actually used the front door instead of the window, I could exit through so many other ways. And the one I picked was the least normal.

The roof, of course.

I bounded up the stairs until I reached the top of the building. By then, the protesters were out of sight and probably halfway to the tower.

There was no way I was super jumping anywhere near there, so I picked the next best travel method.

Car? No. I jumped across the rooftops, of course.

I flew across the short gaps between buildings to make it right next to Deca Tower. Sometimes, I fired the weapon behind be to give me a little unnecessary boost with the recoil. It didn't help at all, but I felt cool doing it.

The whole while, I kept an eye on the passing protesters.

While most were adults of at least 25, I saw some bringing their actual children there.

That... was horrible. I looked on in disgusted confusion as I leapt to another roof. Did people always do this?

I landed on a building close to the tower and lied down on the roof to avoid being seen. From my perspective, the tower was on the square's right side. The shiny golden turtle statue was across from me, on the other side of the street. A few more screens were replaced on the tower; most were generic rectangles, but one was shaped like a giant phone.

The biggest and most dense crowd I have ever seen was facing in a uniform direction away from the tower. A few crates were arranged in the other end of the square with a podium sitting on it. Some really old Inkling wearing a suit and tie was standing behind it. He was going to describe the war that Sir Cuttlefish guy went on about a bunch of times, right?

He cleared his throat and walked up to the outdated microphone on the podium. The crowd started to quiet down to listen to him.

"We are gathered here today to oppose the migration of Octarians into out peaceful society." His voice was shaky, like the rest of him.

Peaceful, my ass.

This dude actually made me furious with a single sentence. Me. The stoic one. I grimaced at his clichéd speech intro and the rest of the idiotic people down there.

"We are gathered here today." Sheesh.

I chose to postpone my stupid plan until a good moment in the speech. It would have the most effect when it caused the most confusion.

He kept going after taking a raspy breath. "Years ago, when I fought bravely in the Great Turf War, it was to protect Inklingkind against the menace that tried to take our land and our people," he coughed loudly, sending an unpleasant screech though the speakers placed in the square.

I kept listening to his verbal propaganda, but not actively. I was waiting for a moment where he started inevitably yelling.

One tall Inkling entered the square from behind the crates. He weaved around them, figuring out what the occasion was. He heard the speech and looked shocked. Did he not hear about the protest?

He tried to get closer to the tower, but the crowd was in his way. Somebody noticed him and signaled behind them, saying something I couldn't hear.

There was a small split in the crowd, allowing a pathway for him to pass through. He immediately started looking guilty, then shuffled past into the rotunda with his hood up and his hands in his pockets. That guy wasn't too bad. Probably.

I assumed they were letting him though solely because of his existence as an Inkling. No Octoling would make it past that crowd. Not that many dared getting anywhere near it.

After a few more minutes of me steaming in my own anger, he finally said something that would produce an effect when interrupted.

"I watched as the Squidbeak Splatoon valiantly pushed them back!"

I smiled and prepared to jump off the building. I said nobody would get past it, not that nobody'd just avoid it altogether.

_This'll be great, _I thought randomly.

He yelled something else, but the microphone didn't pick it up. That one mistake ruined my plan.

I leaned closer, though that achieved nothing with me still being four stories away.

"_Man_, can you _believe _this guy!?" Said another, feminine voice through the speakers. I had definitely heard it before, but this time, it wasn't from my obscure past. "What, are we saying that they suck because of a war? They were literally doing the same thing we did!"

People were looking around frantically, trying to find the source of the new voice. They started mumbling amongst themselves. Some started wandering around. It amused me to see how easy it was to break up a crowd. I postponed my plan once again to see what was happening. My curiosity overcame my determination.

If that first line was anything to go by, she was crashing this speech and arguing for us.

The man at the podium growled and shook his fist in the air. "Show yourself, Octoling scum! I fought you once, I can do it again!" He yelled even louder than before. What was with him, trying to play the hero and all? He looked like he'd collapse trying to lift a Splattershot.

"Alright, alright," said the voice again. "I'll 'show myself' if you want."

I finally found the source of the voice. Another figure stood on the other corner of the square, also on a rooftop, but I couldn't make out any details. She was facing away, wearing a long-brimmed hat that covered her entire head in shade and a tattered cape.

"But for the record," she fell backwards off of the roof, doing a double backflip and landing in the center of a crate on one foot. "I'm not an Octoling. Or scum."

The figure flung the hat off, toward the crowd, revealing her face.

_That's_ where I've seen her before.

It was Captain Rose, or so I called her. She looked pretty much the same as the last time I saw her, fighting with me in Sharktown. She still had that everlasting grin and hair that only grew out on one side. Her eyes were droopy, like they usually were when she wasn't fighting, but I think she did that on purpose. And they were purple, the same color as my hair.

I didn't expect to see her here, of all places. I didn't expect to see her anywhere, to be honest. The city's huge.

"Remember me?" She said through the newer, not outdated microphone. It was wirelessly connected to the speakers dotting the ground. "No? Come on, I'm still wearing the same suit and everything!"

The crowd quieted down, listening to the new character that entered the scene like the whole thing was a play.

I seemed to be the only one in the area that knew her. She was wearing one of the many Hero Suits, like she said. It looked like just a yellow sweater with oversized boots. She wasn't wearing the headset, though

"Oh, yeah, let him talk," she said. "I don't wanna make this too one-sided, alright?"

Something clicked, then the other guy could speak again. Was Marina with her, out of sight?

But more importantly, she just turned this speech into a debate. Everything in me was silently cheering this girl on.

"Who are you? Where are your parents?" said the deluded veteran, pounding that same fist on the podium. He was clearly flustered, having someone come in and crash the speech like this.

"You seriously don't know who I am." Rose said it flatly with her eyes narrowing even more. She started walking around the veteran on top the crates. "Just... just look up the Flash later and find the name 'Rose', It'll make me a lot more believable, trust me."

She looked like a predator sizing up her prey by walking around it menacingly.

"You're saying the Octolings suck from the war, right? By that logic, so do we."

"Get her off the stage!" The veteran was yelling again, pointing back at Rose like she was the worst thing to ever grace his presence. And that wasn't a stage, that was a bunch of crates.

Rose laughed. "Running away from the sensible arguments, huh?" She leaned in closer from the circle she was walking in. "You're really not as brave as you were before, huh?"

I saw right through her tactics. She was trying to bait the guy into arguing with her.

And the idiot took it, a clear step in the right direction. "You question me?" He wasn't turning around to face her. It was because of the microphone mounted on the podium, but it looked really awkward. "Need I remind you who was behind the Flash? And who his army was made of?"

He was putting out the most disprovable arguments.

"I'll stop you right there." Rose stopped walking, standing to his direct left. "I've said this, like, five times already, but literally that entire army was brainwashed. Really. Do some research."

"But-"

"And the one guy behind it? That was one guy." I was thankful she stopped him again before he could spout more nonsense. "Out of how many? I know tons of great Octolings! C'mon. Ask me." She leaned forward again, looking really smug.

I take back my claim about her turning it into a debate. She wasn't letting him speak at all. Which was way better, to be honest. She completely overturned this entire thing, and that made me really excited.

As the veteran opened his mouth to say... probably some more ridiculous claims, Rose started again with a lot of enthusiasm. "Let's start with a big one. DJ Oc himself. When he isn't taking care of a society that's _literally falling apart, _ he's a pretty great guy. He's also the number one reason the tiny army that fought at Sharktown existed. And he personally saved one of my best friends." She started wandering again, though this time, it was aimlessly within the edges of the fake stage.

"Octavio-"

"Another one named Barry. Master strategist. He's why we won with the worst odds on the planet." She chuckled to herself, then gradually lost the perpetual grin, stopping in the middle of the pseudo-stage.

The crowd was murmuring more loudly. More of this, then they'd lose it and start throwing things at her.

I didn't understand why she stopped, though. Or why the veteran let her stop.

Rose stared upwards for a moment, then started smiling again. "And another one named Sky."

_Whoa. Whoa. That's me. She actually remembered me?_

I thought I was pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things, so I was understandably caught off guard with that one.

Rose continued. "She's... one of the coolest people I've ever met." A laugh was in the middle of that sentence.

_What!? Did I hear that correctly?_

"First of all, she singlehanedly trained, like, ten other people, even though I think she was really shy,"

_Was I that transparent? I thought I faked confidence well..._

"She's a master of all weapon types,"

_How did she know that? She only saw me with Dualies! And where is this praise coming from!?_

"She took down a giant robot that almost stopped the train going to Sharktown,"

_Okay, that's true, but that's nothing compared to what you did up there with Akash!_

"And took on a bunch of the brainwashed guys alone and won without a scratch."

_Why does she think so highly of me!?_

She changed the subject from there. "Remember to look me up later. Rose. Flash. If anything, I should be the one that hates them the most. But look at me. I don't." She looked really proud of herself. I would be too. "I think you're all just scared. Scared of people you don't know."

Rose was clearly mocking them at this point. The crowd became very vocal, shouting at her and throwing their signs up there. The veteran covered his head to protect himself as he waddled to the back of the stage.

"Alright, I'm out," said Rose. She dropped the mic, letting it bounce off of the crate, and super jumped away.

I was still recovering from everything she said about me. _Why_ was I blushing so hard?

I dragged myself to the edge of the building. Now was the perfect time to start my plan, so I shook it off and jumped down to the bottom of the square. I hoped it wouldn't be overshadowed by Captain Rose's stunt. If anything, they'd both be remembered.

I tried to land silently, but it didn't matter since the crowd's screaming drowned it out anyway.

Nobody saw me land. They were all facing forward. I slipped into the rotunda and then the lobby of Deca Tower. I swiped my card to open up the elevator to the right, then thought of something else.

Before I entered, I stepped back into the rotunda. A burst of confidence hit me. "Hey!" I screamed at the crowd. The entire back row turned around.

I brushed my hair to the side and winked, drawing attention to my signature Octoling features.

"Broadcast this next one live!" I whirled back around and dashed back into the lobby, jumping into the elevator just as it closed and started to descend.

The smell of tryhard sweat was a lot more welcoming that time.

Lobby A was full, thankfully. Even better was that Lobby B was missing one person. To my knowledge, none of the other ones had anyone in them.

I strolled to Lobby B and swiped my card, pushing the door open. The other three in there, all Inklings, were all staring at the screen.

"NightFall?" Said one of them. It was the same long-faced guy with the hood that I saw walk in earlier. "But she's-"

"Oh, you've heard of me, too?" I smiled at him and actually looked him the eyes. I felt so much more confident knowing there were several people outside that hated me doing this.

He blinked at me. "How did you-"

"From the rooftop." Again, I predicted what he was going to say. The system found a match and displayed everyone from Lobby A. I imagined that they were having a similar reaction.

"G-Guys..." the long-faced guy stuttered. "We won already."

"Yeah, okay," I said. "Let's get in before the crowd starts tearing down the building."

The floor lens opened. They let me in first, which I accepted happily.

* * *

Arowana Mall was a long stage that looked very Charger-centric. There was a lot of high ground and not a lot of obstacles.

But this was a Turf War, so I didn't worry about Chargers.

Either this was a very weird mall, or this specific part was designed solely for battling. I couldn't imagine many people shopping here.

Banners hung between billboards mounted on roofs. A blimp flew around... for some reason.

The ocean glistened to my left in the sunlight. This was my first real match during the day, so I couldn't hide in the shadows like I could at night. I rarely did that anyway.

My usual habit right before a match was to close my eyes and wait for the clap, but I decided to not do that.

I turned around and faced the camera behind me. Once again, I brushed my hair aside and winked at the same time just to let everyone know I was a proud Octoling. I felt... powerful. It was great. It was the best I have ever felt about myself.

Me, the shy, stoic Octoling. I was doing this for Annie, for everyone else up here that needed that boost of self-confidence.

I knew that I had to make this next match my flashiest one yet to spite those protesters even more.

So I did.

* * *

**Holy crap, this chapter is a lot longer than I thought it would be. **

**Like, I had a clear beginning and end in mind, but I didn't think it would last this long.**


	15. Slightly Bigger Fanbase

**The best part about writing for me is seeing how far I've come. I used to struggle to get anything long enough to be considered a chapter, but now I'm writing a lot more confidently.**

**It's in the small details.**

* * *

That night, I woke up to find myself still in my Deepsea clothing. I had just collapsed on the bed after heading to my room. Usually, I slept in the t-shirt, but I guess me from six hours ago couldn't be bothered to change with the lack of sleep she had.

Anyway, one new thing I learned about myself earlier was that I don't like being in the sun's warmth at its peak. The tryhard sweat belonged to me this time.

Sure, the sun was pretty and all, but it was just so... hot. I preferred to look at it rather than be in it.

Sighing, I tossed my clothes into the laundry on the other side of the room, minus the heels of course, and threw on another huge t-shirt. Then I collapsed on the bed again.

My phone was vibrating like crazy, so I took it off of the bedside table. The sudden, harsh light startled me. I squinted through it. Annie was calling me. "What?" I said flatly, putting it on speaker so I didn't have to hold it.

"You're insane." Not even a proper greeting. How rude.

"I know." I fell back down into the mattress. "But I didn't make it worse, did I?"

I said that, knowing full well that I made it worse.

"...Not for us," Annie sighed. "What were the results? By how much you win?"

"Twenty percent or so," I chuckled, rolling to my other side. "I tried to look flashy more than anything. Y'know. To stand out more."

"You stood out enough as it was... That thing you did facing the camera, that's going to become a gang sign, mark my words. And you were wearing all black. Oh yeah, and the whole 'completely different species' thing."

She got me there. Nobody wears that type of thing in broad daylight.

And yeah, I was a different species. That too.

"How'd the public take it?" I asked, changing the subject. That was what intrigued me most.

"Not as badly as they did with that Rose girl. But still pretty badly. Good thing most of them are stuck in retirement homes, right?"

"And what about the rest of them? I saw a ton in the square."

"Oh my god," she started laughing. "Somebody recorded the whole thing. 'Broadcast this next one live!' Then it _was _live on the big screen. The whole crowd screamed at it the whole time. They freaked when you shot that bomb out of the air!" She took it very lightly, apparently. That was what I was aiming for with her.

And yeah, I did shoot one out of the air. Stole that tactic from Masked Mayhem.

"And then they tore apart the stage after you won! Hold on, wanna go see it? It's still there."

"Sure," I agreed. I glanced at the laundry, which was somehow done already. It was fast up here on the surface, like everything else. "Meet you there."

After putting on my one set of actual clothing and getting my Octo Shot replica, I used the door and not the window.

_Yay, I'm relearning how to be a normal person._

"Yo," said Jacob, still lying in same position on the faded green couch I got from Agent 3. "Whatever you doin', can you take me with ya? I got nothin' else to do."

I turned to look at him. He... had a red hoodie that wasn't there before. What was it with hoodies up here? Did they just appear out of nowhere? "Uh, sure. Just bring your weapon, it'll probably come to that..."

* * *

Like I said, Jacob was unnaturally buff. And apparently tall. He towered over everyone else in the square, even when slouching in his teen ways. He held a Blaster in his long hoodie pocket, letting the nozzle stick out of one end.

Annie said they tore apart the stage, but I didn't expect it to be like this.

Broken planks of lightly-colored wood littered the entire area. Going barefoot would mean splinters for days. Everyone dodged the remains of the crates, not even bothering to kick them to the side. Most were Inklings, but a few Octolings were there, and none were getting any weird looks.

Jacob and I were two of them.

"The hell?" Jacob said, pulling his hood down. "What happened here?"

"Oh, you didn't hear?" I said. "I got another friend coming, you can ask her."

I weaved through the mess to reach the same group of metal outdoor tables I usually went to. Taking a chair, I dumped a large piece of wood off of it and brushed off the dust. Jacob split from me, walking to the other corner of the square to examine a plank of wood... for some reason. I guess he was still new to Inkopolis. He looked like a child that just discovered his first toy... or something.

Suddenly, I felt like a mother. I didn't like it. I sighed and leaned my head back.

The sky was black. That was all. Nothing else was notable. Even the moon wasn't visible, but that was because of the young night.

Still, there was something amazingly terrifying about how far it went. There was no screen that abruptly ended the distance. The cool air complemented the image, as if it and the darkness went hand in hand.

The thought thrilled me.

Annie landed on the jump point to my right, which was the only part of the square that was swept clean. She was... wearing that golden toothball I gave her. It was somehow on her ear, but it looked more like she glued it to her head. Other than that, she was wearing the same thing that she did in Deepsea, but without the uniform on top of it. Jeans and a light purple t-shirt. "I see you brought your Octo Shot," she said, approaching me smugly. "It really _is_ all you think about, huh?"

"And you brought your... Uh..." I still didn't know what her weapon was. It had a silvery sheen, made of what looked like a pipe with gears on the nozzle and a pump on the handle. A canister with the Ammo Knights logo was mounted on it. It was a wonder it didn't break off.

"Aerospray," she said as she leaned on the table. "I only brought it because I knew you would. And don't tell me that's the only weapon you own."

It was, unless the real Octo Shot from the sanitized counted. "...Maybe?" I said quietly.

"I gotcha, Miss Master of All Weapon Types," she teased. She heard Captain Rose speaking as well, it seemed. "How about we trade for a game?" She placed her Aerospray on the table, then I took it for the Octo Shot, going along with her game. "Pleasure doin' business with ya," she said in a fake accent that matched Jacob's.

Annie was way different from yesterday. She seemed a lot more playful. Did my... intrusion really affect her that much?

"Yo, Sky!" Jacob yelled obnoxiously loudly from the other corner. A few people turned to look at him in confusion. "Why's the place trashed?"

I waved him over. Annie grew silent as she stared at him running over.

"Ask her," I pointed at Annie with my thumb. "She's seen the video, not me." I turned in my chair to look at her.

"You..." Annie whispered, still staring at him, eyes really wide. "I... I know you..."

_Oooh, this looks important._

Jacob was staring at her, too, jaw dropped and everything.

It was tense. And didn't involve me.

Annie put her hands on my shoulders. "W-why don't you take the first match solo?" She looked panicked.

I nodded lightly, then reluctantly and silently stood up and walked away. Saying something would only break the tension. The last thing I wanted to do was meddle with Annie's personal relationships.

And die, but, well, yeah.

Halfway to the rotunda, I looked back to see them not at the table. Or anywhere in my vision. They must've gone behind one of the shops that were still closed from the protest.

I strolled casually into the lobby and went down the elevator, then entered a random lobby with three people already.

"Whoa, dudes, it's her!" ...Was what I heard immediately.

The owner of that voice was an Inkling male with his deep blue hair combed back. What was he doing, wearing a tank top in this temperature?

...Though I'm not one to judge in that regard.

Despite saying 'dudes,' he was the only 'dude' in the lobby. Another Octoling in a cute, soft-looking sweater and a ponytail stood against the wall, smiling at me from a distance.

And the other was an annoyed looking Inkling with... a schoolgirl uniform from one of the surface academies.

_Fashion up here is broken, I swear. How do you fight in that?_

"Sorry about him," said the schoolgirl. "He's annoying, but too good to kick from the team." Tank top wasn't faded by that obvious insult.

"A team, huh?" I went to the other wall. "What's your strategy?"

"Win," said sweater girl, immediately losing the smile and looking down. "It just works most of the time."

"But that's enough about us!" Tank top McGee practically jumped out of his seat. He snapped his fingers rapidly, probably trying to think of a question. "Why're you named NightFall?"

_Because I had no clue what to be other than ironically edgy. _"Because I usually fight at night."

Sweater girl rolled her eyes and glared at tank top. "Shut up," she said. "We're starting."

The floor opened up. Tank top and schoolgirl fell in first since they were closest. As I brushed by sweater girl, she whispered in my ear. "Thanks." But in Octarian.

It sent a wave of warmth through me. Before stepping in, I brushed my hair aside and winked at her, faintly smiling.

_Am I really that well-known now?_

* * *

The rulebook states that each of the many stages represent Inkopolis, be it a historical landmark, a place of cultural significance, or simply somewhere that people like to be.

And yet they have MakoMart, which was literally just a regular supermarket.

Of course, the most interesting part of the stage was the center. This one in particular seemed to be a risky one to be in since it was surrounded with high ground and had little cover.

The side paths were small, but went straight to the other end of the map. They'd be perfect for flanking.

Pushing deep into the enemy's side would be difficult because of the one path that led there. The same applied to us.

Was everything in this city designed to have rotational symmetry, or...?

The lights in here were not very good at portraying that it was night. It seemed to always be at this brightness, no matter the time of day. Or night.

Annie's Aerospray in my hand was cold.

Ah, the beauty of pure metal.

I didn't know how it compared to an Octo Shot, so this would be a weird learning experience.

My eyes shut gently in preparation, then the clap went off.

I spent the first minute hanging back and not going all-out. That would be bad with a weapon I had zero experience with.

I found out that this thing's accuracy was horrible. Like its range.

But it kinda made up for that with a high rate of fire, so it could work with some people. My fighting style, however, didn't fit this metal piece of garbage in the slightest.

It was completely designed for people who like to cover a bunch of ground, but I usually went to the enemy side to sneak around and keep them from moving forward.

I know that I focused on ground coverage my first match, but since then, I've shifted to being the irritating thorn in their side.

But that was impossible with this piece of scrap metal.

Finally, I pushed forward, climbing the enemy's wall near the center. Somebody was on there, but I fired at them point-blank, miraculously hitting each of the five shots it took to splat them.

Then I threw one of the large Suction Bombs to their base. It didn't hit anyone, but those were good for map control.

I started juggling the weapon between my hands, coating both sides with a fresh coat of pink. An enemy with one of the heavy Rollers pushed forward on the other side path, so I jumped over there and fired from above, missing every shot as they kept pushing the weight to the other side.

_I have decided that I hate this weapon._

That wasn't doing anything, but sweater girl got them with a volley from a Splatling on our side. She brushed her own hair aside and winked at me, tilting her head to the side.

I held back a laugh. Annie was right again. That will definitely become a gang sign. A healthy alternative would be a Octoling pride symbol, though that was hoping for too much.

One minute left. I had no idea what to do. With my usual Octo Shot, I always had an agenda on my mind. Splat opponents, cover nearby ground, push forward. In that order.

But two of those three are not very easy with abysmal range and nonexistent accuracy, so I just focused on the "cover nearby ground" aspect. Pushing would have to wait until I had someone to support me.

Nothing really of note happened in the last bit of time left.

Knowing that that was my sloppiest game to date, I impatiently returned to the lobby.

We still won, but barely.

Apparently I'm a master of all weapon classes, but I'm definately not a master of all weapons.

Nobody other than Annie and maybe Jacob knew that about me. Captain Rose used the name 'Sky', not 'NightFall', and only those two knew that they were the same person. NightFall was like an alias for me, one that I only used in the tower.

"Shoot, that was close," said tank top. "NightFall, is that-"

"Not my main weapon," I interrupted. I wanted to clear my name before it started to be stained. "I'm better with... you know."

Sweater girl returned to her place by the wall. "You... wanna stay another game?" She said very nervously, looking down in embarrassment.

She looked up to me. I just realized that. I was like... her idol.

It was very weird. Like, I didn't want that sort of pressure on me, but at the same time...

I felt great.

"Sorry," I said. "I promised my friend it would be only one game."

_And there's no way in hell I'm using this weapon again._

"See you around."

Hesitantly, I waved left the lobby to find Jacob and Annie standing side-by-side on the the opposite wall. "Yo," said Jacob. Is that how he always greeted people?

"Take this back," said Annie, tossing me my Octo Shot. "I don't think the Aerospray suits you."

_You figure that out now?_

I looked at them standing blankly by each other. Jacob was leaning on the wall while Annie was standing straight.

Annie and Jacob could've been anything from mild acquaintances to lovers. No, I wasn't going to just ask them.

"Pick a lobby, master," said Annie, stepping to me and bowing. "Our prey is waiting."

* * *

**From one of my favorite chapters to write to my least. This one's practically a transition chapter to one of the major ones.**

**For next time.**


	16. Someone Else

**This site seriously needs some better tags. Where's dystopian? Post-apocalyptic? And, of course, Self-discovery?**

**Anyway... here. Like I said last time, this a pretty big chapter. Not word count big, but plot point big.**

* * *

Moray Towers was, apparently, Masked Mayhem home territory. They were going to ruin our win streak, weren't they?

Annie and Jacob stuck together behind some tiny cover, where Gemini — the sniper — couldn't hit them. They were really good, taking advantage of the spacing that a Charger gave.

Instead of anyone else, they aimed at me. The laser hit my cheek, and I reacted by tilting my head to the side, letting the shot stream between it and my shoulder.

That felt amazing.

I looked right at them, swept my hair out of my face, and winked. Then I dove closer to them, standing at the base of the platform they camped on.

I inked the wall and swam up it, launching up and out of it right in front of Gemini. I anticipated another shot, so I kicked off of the arch sitting by us and fired at them, ending the match with one last splat.

"Hm. How does it feel knowing that you've never hit me?" I said. They probably didn't hear it, but it felt nice anyway.

The whistle blew, then I jumped back to the respawn pad to get back to the lobby.

...And they won. The screen showed that they beat us by about five percent. It slid away, with the team results taking it's place. Masked Mayhem was on the top, with each member having a small portion of the screen dedicated to their performance. Their photos were all identical.

_So I know Gemini is the Charger..._

The other Masked Mayhem members were Scorpio, Leo, and Taurus, but they all sounded so foreign. Where'd they get those names? How did people tell the difference?

"W-we can beat them someday," Annie remarked. "We just need o-one more... team... member! One more..."

Something was wrong with her. She wasn't fighting as well as she did before. After meeting Jacob, she seemed on edge. I didn't know what to do about it. What _could_ I have done?

I looked at her worriedly as we left the lobby from our last match of the night. Her head was down in what looked like deep thought, and her hands were buried in her pockets. Something in her just fell apart after fighting them again, but it wasn't just another loss.

"Aight," Jacob said, breaking the uncomfortable silence in the hallway. "That's all for me. I'm out, see ya." He turned around and walked away. Didn't he notice Annie in another emotional conflict?

Annie waved at him sullenly, briefly looking up to acknowledge him leaving. "Mm. Take care..." she stared at her feet as if I wasn't there, right in front of her. Something was obviously bothering her. It couldn't have been Jacob, right?

"One more..." she muttered. I don't think she knew she said that out loud.

I... I really did care about her. I only met her a couple of days ago, but it felt like much longer than that.

It probably was.

My eyes narrowed as I desperately tried to find something to say to her.

But she was the one to start speaking. "Can we go back down to that subway? Your memories... they might be down there... right?"

_She..._

_She really just asked to go back. After fighting those fifteen and breaking into tears over me._

"...I hope they are." They probably weren't, but I was grasping for anything. The metro was really my last resort for finding another memory. Unless I wanted to leave it up to chance. "I was... actually planning on going myself... I don't want you mixed up in my weird past." I nervously brought my hands together behind my back.

"Well, then. Let's go." Annie looked up and faintly grinned. "I already am, right?"

_Was that what was on her mind? Me again?_

_If that's the case, why did Jacob...?_

* * *

The most solemn march in my short memory was when I led Annie back to Deepsea for a second time.

The arrows on the floor leading to the first subway mockingly pointed in the only direction we could've gone, like it was for people who were too stupid to avoid the wall. Ugh, those things were dumb. Just a waste of paint.

Annie sighed deeply behind me. "Still remember nothing?"

"Nope." I said immediately. Then I rethought that statement. Was I willing to tell her about the Eileen picture? She must know her, right? But I can't keep this to myself forever...

"Actually... yeah," I sighed, "I do remember something."

_Another secret I'm going to tell her. I am horrible at keeping these._

"Ever heard the name Eileen Octrope?" I continued without looking at her. For some reason, I didn't want to see her reaction this time.

_Of course she's heard it. It's probably her sister. _

I couldn't make it too obvious that I figured that out, though. She deserted them for a reason.

I heard Annie gasp quietly behind me. "Yes." She sounded hopeful, like she wanted me to remember that name. "W-what about it?"

I didn't know why she sounded like that, but I kept going. "It's a name I first heard from Captain Rose at Sharktown. I once went to fight her on top of a train, but never got a good look at her." That much was true. Her face was obscured by the morning shadows, and some other guy with a Brush ran up to her before I did anything.

But it wasn't what I had found in my suppressed memories.

"A few days ago, I remembered something. It's only a single picture, of Eileen helping me up after... I fell, maybe. She was wearing those Hypno-Shades, but they were deactivated. I don't know what any of it means..."

"Oh..." Her voice grew disappointed again. What did that mean? Why was she being so cryptic?

"It could've been anything from a one time encounter to... a lot more than that... I just don't know..." Something in the back of my mind was pricking me again. The same familiarity I felt when I first met Annie, but stronger.

_Something's up with her and Eileen, but I can't tell..._

_Other than them being related... but... there's more to this. Something..._

"I...I'm scared... I don't know what it means... she... I don't know what she's like..." I was struggling to get that through to her. What would she think of me after knowing I was associated with Eileen? Contempt? Pity? Both?

The ramp ended as it opened up into the first abandoned subway with the lockers and the covered tunnel. I slowed down, backing up to the wall to lean on it. Recalling the picture took a toll on me. I felt... so afraid. Afraid of myself.

_Who I was isn't who I am._

I tried to tell that to myself, tried to remember that this was just a particularly interesting soldier, but it all just kept pointing back to me.

_I can't let my past define me._

Eileen tried to take over an entire species working with Akash.

_Where is she now? Did I help them with it? _

_...Why did I know the Widow's name? Did I help build it?_

I could only feel immense guilt for something I might not have even done. Chances are, if I was the only one that knew that the giant robot spider was called the Widow, it was a major part of my past life. I could've loved it or hated it.

_But I did end up destroying it, right? That must be... redeeming... somehow..._

"Let's go," I said, slightly opening my eyes to find Annie in front of me. I wasn't at my best, but my best wasn't coming back anytime soon.

I've been through hard times before. In Deepsea. I just have to suck it up and press on, like I've done before.

It's never been like this, though. It was always about one of the tests, about just trying again.

Though this is about my past, and there's no way to retry that.

I moved ahead of Annie. She was trying to stop me, take me by the hand, bring me back, but I pulled away. I don't know why I kept walking, but I did.

The soldier in me suppressed my emotions, told me to just keep going, the battle isn't over unless you're dead.

But I'm not a soldier. I never was.

I'm just a child, lost in the maze of my own mind. Memory loss is tough, tougher than anyone'd expect. Especially for someone like me, who could've done everything or nothing.

I might've built the Widow, or I might've tried to destroy it before.

I might've met Eileen after tripping over a shoelace, or I might've been her right hand.

I don't even know how old I am. My own birthday. Family gone, old friends gone. Did I ever love someone? Laugh with them? Was I a quiet person? Loud, happy?

How much did my personality change after the memory loss? Completely? Or not at all?

Did...did I even exist before Deepsea? What if there's no past to discover? What if I was supposed to be the ultimate life form TarTar mentioned?

_No, no, that's impossible. Stop thinking like that._

I was torn from my thoughts when I walked right into the train. I didn't realize it was there. My head made a quiet _thump_ against the window. I stumbled backwards and silently fell.

"Y-you okay?" Annie stuttered behind me. She ran up to where I sat on the ground, but didn't touch me. I don't blame her. I was too fragile in that moment.

"Mm." I hummed. I wasn't hurt at all. Physically, at least. In every other way? A lot.

"Who's there?" said a voice on top of the train. I recognized it immediately. I didn't feel anything after hearing the voice, just robotic recognition.

I stood back up and stared forward, at the train. "Captain." I said blankly. There was no emotion behind it.

"Oh. Uh," said Rose. She stepped into view from the train's rooftop. "Hey, Sky _What. Are you doing. With her."_

"Huh?" I said tiredly. Annie was with me, maybe she was referring to her. "Don't worry, she's fine." I looked up sullenly at Rose. "She asked to come back down here, so..."

Her Dualies were out. Both pointed forward. Not at me, but at... Annie.

I quickly turned to Annie. My fear washed away. And in its place, utter confusion.

Annie looked at me, afraid. "L-let's go. _Now_."

She gripped my arm and started to run back to the ramp, pulling me along. I tried to wrench her off, ask what was happening. Why was Rose attacking her? Why was she down here in the first place?

Why now, of all times?

"Annie, what's happening?" I yelled. Rose wasn't firing, but she jumped off the train and started to give chase.

"Sky, get her!" Rose yelled.

_What? Why? What did she ever do?_

I stopped before we reached the hall, planting my feet on the ground. Annie almost fell, but then she looked back at me, right in the eyes.

The most saddening expression I have ever seen met me. She looked like something between despair, fear, and complete sadness.

Clenching her own eyes shut, she let go of me and painfully sprinted back into the corridor. I dropped my arm lifelessly.

"Sky! Sky!" Rose caught up to me standing rigid on the ground. "Why..."

"No, you first. Why are you attacking her?" I stared up the ramp as the last of her ran out of view.

"Don't you know who she is?" Rose panicked. "She..."

"Annie?" I said, turning back to see her eyes wide. "She's... Annie, right?" Rose was just mistaking her for someone else, right?

_Someone... else..._

Rose blinked. "Annie? L-Like, Annabelle, right? No, no. That's not..."

"That's not... then, wh-who... is... she?"

_Someone else..._

Her expression relaxed, and she started to look curious more than anything else. "You don't..."

"Say it. Who is that, Captain?"

_Someone else._

"I...Eileen..."

* * *

**Hoo boy, this chapter was hard to write. I really went for that spiral into despair, all building up into the plot twist that crashed it all.**

**I had to polish this and proofread it so many times, guys, this chapter needed to be as good as possible.**

**In other news, I finally figured out how to do those line break thingies. I'm more than a year late, but whatever.**


	17. Who She Is

**There's more than one reason the title's Alias.**

* * *

Captain Rose caught me before I could bury my face in the concrete. I didn't realize that I began to fall.

I mumbled something, but it was only gibberish in both of our languages.

"Sky? Sky!" Rose lightly shook me from behind, which wasn't very pleasant when I was already a little dizzy. "You alright?"

I didn't say anything. I don't think I could've. Rose carried me to the wall, my feet dragging on the ground, then gently set me down next to it.

"Ooh," she murmured, peering intently at my face, "you do not look alright..."

I couldn't see myself in that moment, but I imagine I looked like I'd seen the eldritch horrors of the deep ocean.

Rose cautiously sat down next to me and stared upwards, the same direction that I did. I don't know why she stayed with me, but I'm glad she did. It seemed to ease the... whatever it was I was feeling.

_Eileen. Annie. Eileen._

The two names played on repeat, alternating for dominance in my mind.

_But it's just a name, _I thought, _names mean nothing, right? Who I was isn't who I am... so..._

_But she staged the Flash... Did she want to do it again?_

_No... please... no..._

"I... uh... H-How long have you known her?" Rose asked timidly. She was at least talking with me rather than chasing Annie. I-I mean, Eileen.

"Just a few days," I said, after what felt like three-quarters of an hour.

"O- uh, only?" I don't think Rose turned to look at me, but I could feel her panicked expression burning into the ceiling.

"You don't get it..." I droned, monotony taking over my voice. "I've known her before... before the memory wipe..."

Rose didn't respond. She wasn't in my field of vision, and she made no noise I could hear.

"W-w-wait! You don't know that about me!" I sounded crazed, completely insane, but I had no control over how my voice sounded. I could only say what came to mind and hope I didn't accidentally scare her off.

"Sky?" Rose squeaked. She turned to me, gripping me by the shoulders. "J-just calm down, rest your voice. And everything else."

I tried to compare... Eileen from now and Eileen from the image in my memory.

In the image, her hair was tied up, in a ponytail, but it still fell to her shoulder. I couldn't see her eyes, there were deactivated Hypno-Shades in front of them.

Everything else looked exactly the same, but I always thought that it was because they were sisters, not the same person.

Between the familiarity from when I first met her and the fact that I have this image in my mind, she was very significant in my past.

It wasn't a one time encounter, it was... so much more, but I didn't know what it was. I knew almost nothing, it felt so horrifying.

"The reason I was down here," Rose began after a while, "was because I'm a part of the NSS. Agent 4, to be exact. New Squidbeak Splatoon, I mean... I don't want you thinking I'm some delinquent."

I understood the statement, but it didn't really sink in. I was still thinking about Annie and Eileen.

_NSS, too. Haha, how amusing..._

I coughed. Control over my voice was slowly coming back. "...This is the second time I've come here. Since I escaped. She wanted us to go back. For my memories... again."

"Second? What happened the first time?" Of all the things she could've said there, it was that.

"We broke everyone out of there," I laughed tiredly. A subconscious grin spread across my face as I continued slowly. "Annie... she fought more than a dozen of them! At the same time! All for that crowd of random people..."

"She...!" Rose shot up. "She did what, now!? Why!?"

The captain I knew was pretty much yelling into the abyss. I was right next to her, but I felt disconnected from that subway, lying like a corpse against that wall.

Rose started pacing back and forth, crossing half the length of the room. "So she didn't, like, try to recruit you or anything, right?"

I shook my head.

"Didn't say anything about her dad?"

I winced. "No."

"Anything about her life underground?"

"...No." I never wanted to bring it up. It was a touchy subject for what I assumed was everyone. "But she never wanted to."

"O-Okay," she said. "This could mean one of two things. One, she's hiding herself until she can make a move against the city again."

That didn't make me feel any better. "A-And two?" I heaved myself into an actual sitting position and followed Rose's path with my eyes.

"She's trying to throw away her old life and start again."

_Like me, _I thought, _except I didn't throw it away, it was ripped from my hands._

I wanted to trust her, and nothing was stopping me from doing so. Not myself, not Captain Rose, probably, and certainly not herself. She's proven herself as a new Octoling, right?

"Ooh, Two's gonna scold me hard for this," Rose said. "Follow me." She sped to the hallway, not looking back once. "I have an idea."

I stood up after wobbling on my legs a bit. Rose held me steady, then led me up the path, going the opposite direction of the arrows. "What are you planning?" I asked quietly. She didn't seem hostile; just determined.

"Sending you to talk to her," she declared, looking me in the eyes. There was a kind of fire in her own eyes, but I'd never seen it in the context of compassion. "She wouldn't attack you. You know where she is, right?"

I brought my hand behind my neck. "Vague idea." Her apartment, maybe. If not there, then I was lost.

"Eileen would have no reason to do that much for a bunch of strangers." Rose seemed to speed up. "Or hang around you if she wasn't trying to recruit you for anything. Or not mention her past unless she was hiding it. Or use her missing sister's name!" Her attitude towards this was weirdly inspiring. "I am absolutely sure that I'm too trusting, but here we go anyway."

It was still night when we ran out of the ground.

* * *

I narrowly slipped in through the window again and landed on the bland carpet of the hallway. I looked up and immediately found what I was looking for. Room 418 — Eileen's — had its door slightly open, with a sliver of light pouring out of it.

I stuck my head out of the window. Rose stood suspiciously behind the dumpster with her hood up. She nodded at me.

I felt guilty doing this. I didn't know what side I was on, and "both" felt like the wrong answer. I hated that there were two sides to begin with. Were there?

If there weren't, then good.

If there were... I didn't want to consider that.

Even still, it felt wrong to talk to her as an info girl for the NSS, or at least one part of it. I wanted to walk in as Sky, not Agent 8. I threw away that title ages ago.

I let the thought melt off of me, then pushed the door back. It soundlessly swung open.

Every single cardboard box was still in the exact same place. That rope she used to get me up was still hanging lazily out of one sitting by the window. What was in those things?

The computer in the corner was on, but the screen was just black. I considered swiping the flash drive again, but no. I wouldn't do that.

Eileen- No, Annie, no, Eileen... was nowhere I could see. I needed to address her somehow, get her to come out, but I didn't know which name to use.

"Why? Are you here?" echoed a voice from behind a particularly large stack of boxes. It was her. I snuck up to the stack of boxes and peeked through a crack between two of them.

Apparently the whole time, her bed was hidden behind a makeshift wall of cardboard. More importantly, she was staring right at me, a lifeless glare in her eyes.

I jumped back, but it was more from her being right there than her being... her.

"See? You're scared of me. Gonna call in the backup now?"

I shot a glance at the door. Rose wasn't there, I didn't want her to be. Even though she couldn't understand us, I didn't need — or want — the emotional support.

"No, no!" I stammered. Seems like I was saying that word a lot recently. "I... I-I..." I had to bluff if this was going anywhere. "There's no backup."

She sighed loudly. "Tell me," she said. I didn't want to look through that crack in the boxes again, so I could only hear her from the other side. "What's worse, knowing everything you did in your... regretful past, or knowing nothing at all about it?"

_She's comparing us, _I thought. _Regretful__ past? She- Does she really regret it?_

That possibility made me hopeful, but there was a sensitive question to answer. Who has it worse, me or her?

I stood still, deep in thought. She wasn't pressing me for an answer, so I could think.

On one hand, knowing nothing, in a sense, set you free from the past, but I sure didn't feel free.

But on the other hand, she knew exactly what to do to avoid facing her own.

I came to a conclusion, not knowing if I believed it myself. "Knowing nothing is worse," I said. That was what I thought my honest answer was, but I wasn't so sure that it was the one she wanted to hear. "If you know everything," I continued quietly, "you know exactly what to do to reverse or somehow make up for your past."

"Really."

"B-But worse than that." I strained to get that out. Why was this so hard for me to say? "Worse than that is knowing only a little. Having only a tiny link to the past. A-a tiny chain, but still unbreakable. You... I-I don't know what kind of person I was, don't know anything other than that one link. And there're so many things it could mean. Th-that chain could be attached to a field of flowers. Or bombs. Or nothing! It could mean nothing for all I know."

But she knew. Eileen knew exactly what that picture meant, considering it was her in it, but she clearly wasn't going to tell me.

The room fell into silence. If she did things she regrets, then what did I do? It was so easy to ignore it all when it didn't exist in my mind, but the... concept of me doing something like what she did was... unbelievable at best.

Eileen fell back into her bed. "Still... Sometimes, I wish I could forget it all anyway." She took a deep breath. "I really thought it would work. They call it the Flash, right? Just do that, everywhere, and we'd all be back on the surface again. But here we are, both of us. I guess it did work. Octavio, he wouldn't have merged us with Inkopolis if it wasn't for the NSS. If it was just some random Inkling that killed my father, I don't think I'd be up here living with them. But if I just didn't know anything..."

"Even if you did forget everything," I said, "Nobody else would. Everyone I meet, I don't know what they think of me, or even if I knew them before."

She gasped. That hit her. Why, I have no idea.

I shuffled closer to the box wall. "There's a... phrase I go by. Who I was isn't who I am. I wasn't the person I was before the memory wipe." I closed my eyes, hoping this would work. "And you're not the person you were before moving to Inkopolis."

When she didn't say anything, there was only the sound of her breathing. I stood there, next to the boxes, in nervous anticipation. Did I make it better? Worse?

Finally, she croaked something out. "Leave me here for now. I need to think. A-and don't worry. I don't plan on attacking anyone anymore unless it's from the tower. I... I guess I'm not who I was."

That got through to her! I almost squealed some stupid noise, but then I stopped myself. I jogged out the door and made sure to close it. The light from inside seemed to stop shining, but I smiled, knowing it was all in there with her. She needed it more than anyone else.

That was way more rewarding than any of the stations down in Deepsea.

Nobody else was in the hallway, so I jumped back out of the window at its end, sliding it down until it shut as I fell back to the ground.

Captain Rose stood there and squinted at me. "I-I take it by your face that it went well?" She was blushing for some weird reason I couldn't tell.

I realized that I was uncontrollably smiling. "Uh!"

"Come on," Rose said, almost laughing at me. "Let's talk about this somewhere else."

* * *

**Hmm, now that I think about it, I'm really exploring the amnesia plot point a lot, huh? **

**Jeez, this is a Nintendo game about anthropomorphic sea life, and this is what I write. It's fun.**


	18. Rose-Colored Sky

**(To moniker is sorrowfully defnktn:) Thanks for the feedback! I've been trying to make my first-person writing feel natural, and I've felt myself getting better at it, especially in the emotional scenes. I've been writing for only a year and a half, so hearing that I'm improving is really exciting. Really, any review is exciting for me. **

**Thanks again!**

* * *

I still had so many unanswered questions. This was all fresh in my mind. What did it take for Eileen to turn herself around? What exactly was she thinking of right then?

_What will she do about it?_

She can't just ignore it all, she knows that Captain Rose knows. And Rose is part of the NSS. I _did_ tell her that she could take steps to make up for... whatever else she did, but what was there left to do?

As I stared worriedly at the back of Rose's head, I couldn't shake the feeling of guilt that I was just a spy for the NSS, talking to her only to hear she wouldn't attack anyone. I'm not Agent 8, I never really was.

There was that strange sincerity in Eileen's voice when she told me, but there were so many things that "not attacking anyone" could mean. She could still hate everyone that wasn't an Octoling, but I didn't think she did.

Captain Rose led me by the wrist to a section of the city that I hadn't explored yet. I had no reason to be there before she did. There was nothing there that I knew about other than a port. "So what else happened?" she asked.

I opened my mouth to speak, but stopped. That was all extremely personal. For both me and Eileen. "You know about it all already," I lied. "Like the Flash and... Just... she said she won't... yeah."

"That makes sense..." Rose turned the corner of the sidewalk. I saw that we were near the ocean. "Her motive was always to get on the surface, and now she is... But her dad's just dead! How is she okay with that? It was only, like, three weeks ago!" She actually took that wreck of a sentence.

"...Maybe she never liked him?" I suggested. That was completely wrong, but it was better than saying nothing. Or agreeing, since I already made the decision that she was redeemable.

"Here we are." Rose pulled me to a bench overlooking the sea. We were in some kind of park, a small patch of grass in the huge city. A bridge, supposedly leading to more of Inkopolis, was to our side. The wind from the sea let her hair sway in a weirdly hypnotic circle.

She dropped onto the bench, crossing her legs lazily. I joined her.

I blinked dumbly at the ocean. Why were we here, of all places? "...What? No base of operations or anything?"

Rose stared at the water, her eyes glinting in the moon's reflection. "If I took you there, the rest would find out, and then we'd be going right back to her apartment."

That ruled out their implied base, but what about literally anywhere else? Did she take me out here just for the scenery?

At least the stars were better from that lonely bench.

Rose shifted a bit closer to me. "So... uh... you said something about a memory wipe?" The inward breeze of the ocean almost drowned it out. She could tell that was a touchy subject.

"I... yeah." This had nothing to do with Eileen, but then again, she's Agent 4, and the NSS likes to know things. "Ask Agent 3 later. He knows all of it."

And by that, I meant he knows everything that I wanted anyone to know. Captain Rose wasn't a complete stranger, but I wasn't going to thrust my entire life onto her.

An awkward silence overtook is, but I didn't care. That picture took over my mind again. Eileen, wearing the shades, helping me up. Knowing that it was the same person in that apartment was crazy. What were the odds of us just randomly meeting each other again?

It was obvious why she tried to hide herself from me, though. By then, her name wasn't well known, but the few that did know it dreaded it. It would be extremely risky to tell anyone her real name.

But the fact that, the whole time, she was Eileen but under a different name was surreal. My entire perception of her changed to a kind of odd respect. It couldn't have been easy to move to Inkopolis like that. Especially after attacking it and enslaving everyone.

The difference between us was that she chose to restart while I didn't.

We both ended up freely living on the surface, but it seemed like we both had problems.

Rose looked back at me, staring at the stars. No... I couldn't tell her any of that either. "What now?" I said. Everything I was willing to say had been said.

She pulled her hood up. "You wanna just... talk?" Again with the blushing. Why. It wasn't _that _cold. She was trying to hide it with her hood, but she was failing miserably.

"Uh... sure." I had nothing else better to do. There was still some time left in the night. The moon was my clock, and it said sunrise was close. "About what?"

Rose relaxed, leaned back, and took a deep breath. "Whatever."

I stared at her, waiting for her to say... something. "Uh-"

"A memory wipe, huh..." Rose looked back down and shut her eyes.

_She's going back to that again, I guess..._

"That can't be easy, right?" she whispered. "Sorry... That's all I can really do. O-or say."

I tuned to look at her, surprised. I thought she would just shrug it off like everyone else. Cuttlefish, Pearl, Marina, Agent 3, they all ignored it. Thought it was just some minor inconvenience. In hindsight, it really was when I was stuck in Deepsea, but I'm not anymore. I'm on the surface now.

But I _did_ cut ties with the NSS after I escaped. And Off the Hook is pretty busy most of the time, so maybe they forgot about me.

At least, other than Eileen, I had Rose. Not Agent 4. She had it way better than I did, having all of her life in her memory, but at least she recognized my situation.

"Captain..."

"Okay, first of all, stop calling me 'captain.' I was never a captain in the first place." She turned to me with those droopy eyes and that warm smile.

"More like a drill sergeant," she muttered. "But just call me Rose."

"Uh, sure... R-Rose..."

"Wait, hold on." She pulled the headset down and hung it on her neck, then unzipped the yellow-green jacket she was wearing and slipped it down to her waist, revealing a pink shirt that looked... really tight. "Now I'm Rose." She flashed a toothy grin.

I broke into laughter. I don't know why that was so funny to me, but it was. Just a pair of headphones and a jacket! That's it.

_That's_ what separated Agent 4 from Rose. "S-Sorry... It's just... n-never mind. I'm sorry."

I felt a little more... _loose_ then, for lack of a better term.. Just an hour ago, I was just a corpse sitting against an underground wall. Maybe it was Eileen. Her regretting her past seemed like the first step in making up for mine. There was still that unsettling feeling in the back of my mind, but I shoved it away. I could deal with that later.

The wind blew my hair into my face. I swept it back as I looked back up at the stars. "Why were you down there alone?" I asked Rose. "What happened to the rest of... uh... 'the team?'"

It seemed like my sudden laughter caught her off guard. She took a moment before she responded. "Th-The others went earlier that day. I was... busy... at the protest... y'know."

Right, the protest. It was hard to believe that we crashed the protest on the same day Eileen was... unmasked.

_The protest!_

It felt like a criminal offense to not mention what she said about me then. I was "one of the coolest people she's ever met," apparently.

Before I could bring that up, she started rambling. "So during that protest, One, Two and Three all went down there. Uh, a-and they shut down some evil computer thingy. Two said it was easy, but One was, like, carrying Three back. I don't know what happened to him."

She was being weirdly loud. And fast. I raised my eyebrow, but she kept going. Was she trying to change the subject?

"He's fine, though, said something about how stupidly terrifying that place was. And then I got curious and went down there myself. I got to the top of of that train, then... yeah."

Shut down an evil computer. That was TarTar, right? They shut it down? I thought that was what Pearl did when she screamed at it, but maybe it made a backup of itself. Or multiple.

Oh well. It wasn't my problem anymore. I surprised myself with how little I cared about that part. That thing almost initiated the apocalypse, but all could think was "Oh well."

There was too much going on that night for me to care.

And I guess Simon had some unresolved trauma with that place as well.

More — or less — importantly, Rose was avoiding what she said at the protest. I squinted at her, just to let her know that I could tell, but decided not to mention it anyway. "Okay," I murmured. I went back to looking up. "The stars are better than earlier." I said that even as sun was coming up as a test.

Rose breathed a painfully obvious sigh of relief. "Heh. Yeah..."

So she agreed with me. She didn't even look. There were actually less visible stars than earlier.

...I don't think I could blame her for not wanting to mention it, though.

One thing I saw, though, was that the sun sent a rosy hue cutting through the sky. It wasn't as mesmerizing as the stars, but it was beautiful in its own way.

"Is that why your name is Sky?" Rose leaned uncomfortably close to me. "I've never met an Octoling named after a word in our language before."

"Took you that long?" I had a very unique name. I didn't know of a single Inkling with that name either. Or jellyfish, but theirs seemed to always be just random selections of letters. "I like it better at night, though. For some reason, I could see more stars from here than other places..."

Rose gasped. She tried and failed to hold back a smile. "W-what's the farthest you've been from Inkopolis at night?" she blurted excitedly.

What the heck did that have to do with anything? "Uh, I guess Sharktown, but-"

"Meet me right here at midnight."


	19. Accidental Eavesdropping

As the sun continued rising, I collapsed face-down onto my bed. I had a lot to process.

First of all, the girl I once knew as Annie was Eileen, the Octoling that staged the Flash with her father and two brothers. That fact was quite the huge revelation in itself.

That was, like, the fifth time I thought that exact sentence that night, but it didn't make it any less jarring.

I thought back to when we first met in the tower. One of the first things I did with her involved that flash drive. Is that why she transferred all of those files? So nobody else would find them?

But she did that because she wanted to hide her past. Why'd she give it to me, then?

I didn't have an answer to that, so I moved on. I had to look at every moment we spent together with her actual name to put it all into perspective.

Another thing was that she obviously knew Jacob...

_Jacob... _I thought. _Oh god he's related to her, isn't he._

I groaned. _Why_ did everyone I know have some weird secret identity? Including me?

I pressed my face further into the pillow. This was irritatingly confusing.

So Jacob was one of her siblings. I didn't know where her other brother was, but as far as I knew, neither did she.

I definitely knew her before the memory wipe, but I wasn't sure if she knew that I did. Like I said, I looked extremely different compared to what I looked like a few years ago. Probably. Depends on how old I was right then.

Octoling development is weird. Children of most other species are just smaller versions of the adults while we have this whole metamorphosis thing.

Eileen knew me, but did Jacob? I didn't see him when I came back to my... _our_ apartment, like I usually did. Maybe Eileen told him that I found her out. That I probably connected the dots and found him out, too.

Well, there was nothing to do about that other than wait.

I built a mental timeline to sort everything I knew about her.

Sometime after Sharktown, Eileen moved to Inkopolis. Octavio personally killed her father, so she was separated from her brothers.

If it was an Inkling that killed him, she wouldn't be living here and would probably be plotting some revenge.

Two weeks after she moved, I met her in Deca Tower under the name of Annie. That night, I found her in the tunnel the Widow dug with a flash drive full of all of the files in that outpost. I still had no idea why she showed it to me.

Some time later, I told her about my memory wipe and my month in Deepsea. The next night, we went down there and freed everyone. She personally fought fifteen sanitized Octolings, won, and let everyone out.

That had to be a good sign of redemption, right?

The next night, she saw Jacob and definitely knew him. The most likely situation is that they're siblings.

After meeting him, she started some weird mental decline for some reason. Why, I didn't know. She wanted to go back to Deepsea for my memories, so we made it halfway, then Rose jumped in and told me her real name.

Whew. Okay. That was Eileen. But that wasn't all, of course.

So, also, the Inkling I literally looked up to for fighting Akash on that floating platform just so happened to be Agent 4 of the NSS, the semi-legal band of secret vigilantes that I cut ties with half a year ago. She and Agent 3 were up there, so I assumed the other two blurs were Agent 1 and Agent 2.

Rose was willing to give Eileen a chance as well. I wasn't so sure that the other NSS members would agree, but one was better than zero in this case.

And then, after I went to talk to Eileen, Rose told me that they shut down TarTar again, or at least another clone. I didn't see a single sanitized Octoling on the surface since then, so I hoped the whole system was shut down.

But then again, it hasn't been a full day yet.

My thoughts were a mess.

I knew that Rose was Agent 4, but she didn't know that I used to be Agent 8. She knew that there _was_ an Agent 8, though, because of the message I accidentally sent to her the other day. And according to Cuttlefish, she was the only one who saw it.

The communicator that he gave me was right next to me, in the drawer. I guess I could tell her that, so it didn't end up nagging her for the next... however long it would be.

I pushed aside my thoughts so I could focus on getting the message through. Because it would quickly become awkward if I didn't focus.

I pulled the drawer open from the bed, then fumbled around, feeling for the device inside. It was next to the Mem Cake box and the CQ-80 thing.

After unlocking it with another scan of my suction cup, I sat up to look at it. It took me right back to the screen with Agent 3.

I realized that I had no idea how to work this thing and get the message only to her.

The next best choice was an audio message, so I sleepily tapped the top corner of the screen, conveniently labeled with a microphone. A series of numbers appeared in the arrangement of a keypad, but they only went up to four. And instead of a 0, there was a C. That must've been the loud captain.

I assumed that the 8 was hidden on the other communicators.

Hoping this would work, I tapped the 4. The screen went dark.

Did... did I do something wrong? It definitely didn't run out of power, so what happened?

There wasn't any ringing like there usually was for a regular phone call. I guess that made sense. These things were usually used for the secret stuff, and some of it was probably stealth-related.

Someone breathed deeply on the other side. "Alright, so she... this was six months ago, right?" That was Rose.

Oh. So the dark screen meant it was working. But how was I supposed to answer that?

"Yes, six months, when we escaped..." That voice, quieter than Rose's, belonged to Simon. Oh. They didn't know I could hear them. They were talking. The six month number told me it was about Deepsea.

This... this didn't feel right. With that tiny device, I could eavesdrop on any of their conversations, given there was a nearby communicator. I considered turning it off right then, but... no. She was talking about me. I deserved to hear this.

It seemed like Rose already asked him about me, like I told her to. Their conversation seemed to be what came from it.

That piqued my curiosity. What did they really think of me?

I set the communicator on the table and lay back down. I didn't know how much of this I missed, or how much I was going to hear.

Simon continued, and I strained to hear him. He must've been farther from Rose's communicator. "It was really weird sitting next to her on that helicopter. The last two times we met, we fought. And I wasn't even conscious for one of them." I was pretty sure he was talking about the elevator, when he was mind-controlled by TarTar. That was uncomfortable, for what I assumed was both of us. I didn't like how that thing on head... moved.

"Oh, yeah, that. You told me about that..." Rose recalled. "Wait, you're telling me you've been brainwashed three times?" Three? I only knew of the one. "Huh. I always thought you were tied at two with your... uh... girlfriend."

Well. I wasn't supposed to hear that. Simon had a girlfriend, apparently. "That isn't really a badge of honor..." he mumbled.

"Uh... yeah, I know. Sorry. A-anyway, you know why Sky's good at, like, everything?" she said flatly.

Everything, huh? Is that what she thought about me? I smiled to myself. She gave me too much credit.

"She's been trained. A lot," Simon explained.

_Whoa, hold on, _I thought. My smile suddenly faded. _This isn't something I know._

I listened intently as he kept going. "The captain says she was fully developed at age nine."

Sheesh, _what_?

That's super early, even for an Octoling. It's usually thirteen or fourteen for us.

"Never was in the army," he continued. I barely heard it. "But still had some serious training."

"Hold up, slow down!" Rose shouted. "Nine!?" I shared the sentiment, even though this was me they were talking about.

"Mm. Nine. Practically unheard of."

"Jeez, who is this? Nine... what the heck..." she trailed off, then they grew quiet.

After a short while, I heard someone sigh, and judging by the volume, it was Simon again. "Keep this between us, but she... I almost quit the team because of her."

"Wh...What!?" That was really loud, even through the communicator. Rose was shouting a lot. "You're the last person I expect to quit!"

"S-stop. Never mind. Ignore that, please..." He regretted saying that. From the limited experience I had with her, she liked to pry, so I understood.

"What's this I heard about you quitting?" shouted a voice from somewhere else. It wasn't Rose or Simon, so I guessed it was one of the others. Whoever it was, she was also loud. Was being loud one of the NSS requirements?

I turned off the communicator with the button on the side. The discussion was shifting away from me, so I didn't need to hear any more.

I brushed the device back into the drawer, closing it after hearing it clatter against the lid of the Mem Cake box. I guess I wasn't telling Rose that I was Agent 8. For now, at least.

I chose to delay that until midnight. I still didn't know why she wanted me back at that bench.

I sighed. It was brighter then, since I removed the tape on the curtains to look at the protest yesterday.

According to Simon, I almost made him quit. How, exactly? What did I ever do?

Was it that I beat him while mind-controlled? No, that didn't make sense.

I racked my mind for some interaction we had that might've pushed him to quit, but I couldn't think of any. Or maybe it wasn't me. Maybe it was just Deepsea, and he associated me with it.

That was a possibility.

I shut my eyes. I needed sleep after that eventful night.

_Or was it... from before Deepsea..._

* * *

**So guys, summer is ending, so there is a possibility that updates end up slowing, for this and the rewriting. I'll try to not let that happen, but still. It might.**


	20. Never Come Back Here Again

**Guys, this is the only chapter I have written in advance. Ever. I just had this idea and it was too good to ignore while still fresh in my mind.**

**I'm writing this before chapter 16, right before the "Annie is Eileen" chapter.**

**So, hi.**

* * *

**It is me from the future, coming to say that no, I have not written this entire chapter in advance. The first part, yes, though.**

* * *

I was lying, helpless, in a pool of orange ink, staring up at the bleak walls of a dome. Mechanical tentacles whipped the air, but they did nothing for me. I could feel the ink burning into me, but that was the least of my concerns.

I struggled to move, do anything other than lie there, but I couldn't. Agent 3, the most infamous name in Octarian society, had his knee pressing on my chest.

I looked at him in the eyes blankly. I couldn't show him any fear. His cape fluttered awkwardly behind him, and the Hero Shot he was holding was pressed against my forehead. He grinned, happily knowing he won again. He looked down on me, lying there uselessly, without a thing to do other than wait.

_I... lost. That wasn't... what he wanted... no..._

Agent 3 was going to pull the trigger, splatting me instantly. No big deal. No fear. My nearest regeneration point was close by, so I'd just reappear and be on my way.

But then he'd escape. ...And then cause more havoc down here. Why was he doing this, what did he gain, why!?

I couldn't help but grimace thinking about it. No... no fear. I... I wasn't supposed to lose this fight, I was our only chance, I was going to free us!

I was the vigilante savior sent by... him, but I was out of the picture. Agent 3 was free to do whatever he wanted to down here. Again and again, he'd tear through any Octoling that dared to fight him. He was good, too good, and he had better equipment, better weapons, better everything.

I felt a tear run down my face as I came to the realization that I failed us all. If he could beat me, then there was nothing in his way. N-no fear...

_No, I never cry, I'm not supposed to! I can just try again, another time, I'll be better, I... I... I lost... I lost..._

"I lost..."

Through the blurry veil of my tears, I saw Agent 3 hesitate. His knee against my chest weakened.

That was all it took to kick my instincts back into motion. It didn't matter that I couldn't see well. I tried to punch his weapon, the infamous Hero Shot, away from still kept his grip on it, so I took my other hand and wrenched it from him. I flung it behind me, leaving it to clatter on the ground a short distance away.

That made him reach for where it flew, so I kicked him off of me and pushed myself up. I reached for the weapon myself, desperately trudging through the orange ink to reach it before Agent 3. This was my last chance. No fear.

If I could best him here, I could prove that I was better, and that I would stop him again.

I dove for the weapon, throwing myself on top of it, and opened its small ink container, attaching it to my own ink tank.

There it was. The battle was in my favor. A spark of hope glimmered in me. Was I going to turn this around?

Agent 3 was unarmed. I fired to his right, then left, then hurled a bomb behind him as I charged at him and forced him down. He grunted as he hit the floor.

I... I did it. Now he was on the ground. I pressed my own knee against his chest and the nozzle on his forehead. Somehow, I completely reversed our positions. He was the one in a pool of purple ink and I was the one holding him down.

"Excellent tactic," said a raspy voice in my headset. "Feigning emotion caught him off guard."

I realized that tears were still streaming down my face. I did all of that while looking through a blur. That... wasn't fake at all. Did he think that I was faking it? No... he thought too highly of me to even consider that it was real.

"Agent 3? Agent 3?" I heard from his own headset.

Despite the tears, I felt... wonderful. Finally. Somebody caught him. And it was me. I smiled, proud of myself, knowing that I could free us from Agent 3 here and now. All I had to do was prove that I was better, and he would stay out. I won this fight, the only chance pulled through. I can free us.

I looked at his face. He looked... genuinely terrified. My grin dropped.

_Oh._

If he splatted me, I would've been fine. But I lured him all the way out here. His nearest regeneration point was miles away. If I pulled this trigger...

_He won't come back._

He was just a kid, I saw. Smooth skin, vitality, clear eyes, everything. He was so young. What was he fighting for? The protection of his kind? No, that couldn't be it, the threat to Inklingkind ended over a year ago.

Or was it his own confidence, reaching for the gratification loved by the young? That must be it, right?

Or... maybe he didn't know.

However young he was... I was still younger. What was I fighting for?

_To be the liberator of your own kind, of course!_

Was that really it? No, it couldn't be. There was nothing in killing someone else, even if it was for the good of the Octarians. Besides, this wouldn't get us closer the surface.

_But we've been down here our entire lives! And he's been stopping us from breaking through! Killing Agent 3 is the first step to freeing us!_

Was it really? There were other ways to keep him out, right? I never considered that before then, staring at his scared expression. If he dared to, I knew he would start pleading for his life.

I couldn't pull the trigger. I wanted to, but... no. I didn't want to.

I didn't want to end a stupid child's life like this. This wasn't a game, this was real life. I needed to make him understand that.

There must've been some other way. Some way to keep him out of here. Some way to make sure that he wouldn't terrorize us... me... anymore.

When I looked at his face, I found my answer.

"Never come back here again," I glowered, still crying. "Look at me. This is what you caused. Is this really what you want?"

"No! What are you doing!?" pleaded the voice in my headset. "He's right there, how do you know he'll stay out?"

Speaking his language perfectly surprised him. Slowly, I backed away, clutching the Hero Shot with both of my hands as I took my knee off of him. I wiped my face, one eye at a time. I breathed in, then out.

That was it. That was the battle between me and Agent 3. A draw. No, it wasn't really a draw. I was the victor. I did something to keep him from coming back.

I looked back at him as he struggled to get up.

When he stood, he took one glance at me and instinctively took a few steps back. Good. What I said affected him.

I bit my tongue. I had no idea how I felt about that. I didn't know how I was supposed to feel.

The voice in my headset kept rambling, but I blocked it out.

I blinked, trying to process how quickly it ended, then a sharp pain hit the back of my head.

* * *

"What the!" I sat up, back in my bed. "What the hell was that!?"

What kind of hyper-realistic dream...!?

No... wait, _was _that a dream?

Wait, yes, of course it was, but why did it feel so real? Did that really happen? Was that what I did right before Deepsea?

Hold on. Stop. I had to slow down. Yes, that was a dream. But was it _just_ a dream, or was it a recreation of what I did in the past?

Nothing in there happened that would make me think it wasn't.

I stood up, stretched, and looked outside. Night. There was still some time before midnight, so I had time. I cleared my mind and reminded myself that I'm Sky, and no amount of past could change that.

I closed my eyes, taking another deep breath, and thought back to the dream. One thing was certain: in it, I fought Agent 3 and won.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense as a real event.

Ugh, I just woke up, and I was already thrown back in. Not even a chance to step back. Yesterday, I learned Eileen's name, and today, this?

Okay, so when I first awoke in Deepsea, Cuttlefish said that I was fighting Agent 3. That checked out.

More importantly, I heard Simon say that I almost made him quit. That... also checked out.

"Never come back here again," I whispered to myself in the reflection of the window. Something told me that I have said those exact words before. If the dream was true, they came from that battle.

So I decided that it was real. Everything just... fit too well.

It was a memory suppression, I reminded myself, not a memory wipe. I could remember things, and this seemed to be one of them.

The last thing I thought before falling asleep was the possibility that I almost made Agent 3 quit because of something before Deepsea. I just didn't think it would invade my dreams. I didn't know that was possible. I didn't even think something would come out of thinking that.

Suddenly, I realized that the dream was only the second actual memory I had. The Eileen photo was one, the other was this.

But there weren't any evil undertones there. Just me, trying to beat him and free the underground from his constant invasions. The pre-Inkopolis Eileen wasn't there, I wasn't a bloodthirsty monster, I even spared his life.

I slid down the wall, dropping to the floor in relief. "Never come back here again," I said. Those words shouldn't have been as comforting as they were then. It was a sentence restricting someone, but it helped me feel more free. "Never come back here again."

I was just being a hero for the underground. I didn't have anything to do with the Flash, or whatever its early stages were. I was just there to stop the Inkling who kept us all trapped.

Simon, who I knew was Agent 3, put up with me when he led me to Deepsea. Even though I said the one thing that almost made him quit, he was fine being around me.

Maybe he also saw me as a different person. Like Eileen and Cuttlefish did. I don't remember hearing about any of his invasions, so I guess it worked.

Look at me, already accepting this memory. It only took a couple of minutes for this one.

I hoped that the rest would be like that.

But then again, this was only one thing. It didn't change the fact that I knew Eileen before the Flash. The battle might've been one step towards the it.

No, that couldn't be true. Akash didn't rise to power until Octavio's second capture.

This... I had to revisit this later.

I was torn from my thoughts when my phone rang.

It was just one thing after another for me, huh?

I pulled it off the desk and read the name on the screen. "Annie..."

* * *

**Y'know, sometimes it feels like I'm writing fanfiction of my own fanfiction. Like, all of this is basically a continuation of The Agents of Inkopolis but with Sky as the main character.**

**Even the enitre genre of the story is completely different.**


	21. Waiting for Midnight

"Annie..." I whispered again. That was the name on my phone, the one I typed myself when she gave me her number.

Already, she was calling me. Eileen. It hadn't even been a day, yet here she was. My finger hovered over the screen as it glowed, asking me to either take the call or decline it.

_I should really change the name, _I thought. So it would be harder for us to remember her using it. That was Eileen, and no fake name would change that. If there was one thing I was good at, it was forgetting the past. Though, I was staring to doubt that...

_Who I was isn't who I am..._

I didn't want to make Eileen wait any longer. I felt a bit nervous as I pressed the green button on the screen. What was she going to say? I put the phone on speaker so I could lie back down on the bed. "Hey," I said blankly, "how are you doing?" I had no idea what she wanted to hear, so I kept my tone as neutral as possible.

She didn't respond right away. I listened for any background noises to try and tell where she was, but nothing came through other than a faint breeze.

"Oh!" she suddenly blurted. "S-sorry, didn't hear you." Apparently, she was also on speaker. I shifted closer to where I put my phone on the nightstand. She continued. "A couple of things, uh, first of all, thanks for existing." Existing.

I... guess that was her way of thanking me for the talk yesterday? There wasn't much else it could've meant.

"No problem..." I said. This wasn't Annie, I reminded myself, this was Eileen. Names were confusing. Especially those two.

"Just to make sure, you're not... afraid of me, right?" That was a legitimate concern. Last time I saw her face behind that cardboard wall, I jumped back.

"No," I sighed. I didn't like remembering that. "...It was the deadpan look you had." I wasn't entirely comfortable admitting that to her, but oh well. It was better than the alternative.

"Oh. That... that makes so much sense." The fact that she didn't sound depressed at all was a good thing. I knew she had a knack for quick emotional recoveries, but still, this was a huge thing that she just... shrugged off.

"What's the other thing?" I asked in an attempt to change the subject to something lighter. "You said there were a couple."

Eileen laughed quietly. "Yeah, so me and Jacob are sitting right outside of Deca Tower right now."

* * *

"That was fast," Eileen remarked as I landed on the jump point near her and Jacob. The specific table they reclined at a short distance away was the one we always took. She tried to lighten the mood and brushed her hair to the side and winked. It worked.

I went over to them, smiling brightly. I knew what she was offering when she told me where she was, and I was glad about it. Out of all the things we'd done together, this was the least depressing.

But what surprised me the most was their clothes. Why exactly were they both in Octarian soldier uniforms? Jacob looked very out of place with his midriff showing, and Eileen was a lot skinnier than I originally thought.

"Didn't you know that what you always wear is a modified uniform?" Eileen explained, practically reading my mind. "Like, these are pretty flexible, and, you know... battle." I knew all of that already, but I still kept them for the versatility. Like she said, they were flexible, even if they made me look... questionable in public.

I looked back at her. Eileen was faintly smiling at me. I was starting to notice a pattern with the both of us. We just ignored terrible past events and pretended they never happened. I push away Deepsea, and Eileen ignores her two breakdowns. The first being in Deepsea, the second... just outside of Deepsea.

"...And we're going for a theme here." Eileen admitted blankly. They succeeded, since the three of us definitely looked like an organized team.

I was the slightly different one, with the modified uniform and all, so I looked like the leader.

"Come on, I know you want to start." She playfully went to me, patted me on the back, and waved Jacob to head in first. He shrugged, stood up, and strolled away. "Yeah, that's my brother," she whispered when he was out of earshot. It seemed like patting my back was just an excuse to get close enough to tell me that.

How weird is it that I just met her brother in a dead-end alley? If I never decided to walk home that evening, Jacob would've been attacked further. And turned into number 10,009. I wondered if he told her that part.

Finally, I saw the importance of shutting down TarTar. At least the NSS did it and I didn't have to get roped in.

"I figured he was," I said, shying away. "Uh..."

She pulled away and raised the tone of her voice again. "Just use 'Eileen.' Not like anyone knows that name anyway." She pulled me closer to the rotunda, past clumps of other Inklings and Octolings mingling late into the night. The moon was almost at its height, but midnight was still an hour away.

There was still more to tell her, though. I leaned closer to Eileen as we walked and whispered, "Agent 4 said she'll give you a chance." I purposely left out the rest of the details, like how Agent 4 was right outside the building when we talked. She didn't need to know that.

Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks. Up ahead, Jacob turned around to see what was taking us so long. "She will, huh..." she said in a tone I couldn't read. Eileen turned to face me and smiled warmly.

In that moment, she had a creepy resemblance to Rose. Purposefully tired and droopy eyelids, faint smile, bright eyes. "Tell her I'll take that chance."

* * *

That night, the tower was a lot more empty than it usually was. Eileen, Jacob, and I picked one, settled in, and waited. And kept waiting.

"One more," Eileen muttered again. I remembered her saying that shortly beforehand asking me to return to Deepsea again, but this time, she was smiling at the floor. Not sulking. That was a good sign, but-

Jacob nodded across from her. "...One more," he agreed. Around Eileen, he seemed quieter.

"Can I ask what that means?" I said, confused. That wasn't the first time she said that, and even Jacob joined in this time.

Eileen turned around to look at me, partially hiding in the corner. "One more of the Octropes. You know there are... three of us, right?"

Oh. I _had _thought of that, but I didn't mean to bring it up. It should've happened more gracefully, at least...

"We don't know where he is," she continued. "His nickname was Rocky. Got it from his tastes in music." She looked at the ceiling, clearly reminiscent. "But hey, you found Jacob, so Rocky shouldn't be too far behind, right?"

Her face was cheerful, but her voice displayed her feelings. She was worried about him.

I blinked at her. "He was the youngest, wasn't he?" I guessed. I'd never met him, but if Eileen felt that way about him...

"N-no... yes," she conceded. "Fourteen, a year and a half younger than Jacob. Three younger than me." She was gritting her teeth.

I decided to leave that thought to her and Jacob. It didn't really concern me, as much as I wanted it to.

If he was fourteen, that made Jacob fifteen. And Eileen seventeen.

_Wait, what?_

I shot a glance at her calmly sitting on the black, leather couch. She was _seventeen_?

That was the second of the the age-related surprises I'd had, the first being how I could freely switch in and out of Octopus form by nine. The longer I knew her, he more similarities I found between us.

Eileen looked up and noticed me staring at her. "I'm... older than you expected, right?" she asked, reading my mind again. I was starting to have a hunch that she knew me better than she let on.

Squinting, I nodded.

She went back to staring at the floor. "I was always the oldest," Eileen sighed. "It was hard being the role model... Sometimes, I wished it was just me. I wouldn't have to worry about 'setting a good example,' or... I don't know, something."

Jacob, sitting across from her, didn't look the least bit offended. Maybe he felt the same way, being the second oldest. It must've been tough being an Octrope. Especially after the death of Akash.

Eileen looked at the door. "And then... never mind."

A part of me was glad she didn't continue. I didn't want another consecutive night of confusing names and our pasts.

Jacob seemed to be the least affected in that regard.

Somebody else — another male Inkling — pushed the door open, and was, understandably, shocked. Jacob's mere existence was menacing, I was creepily hiding in the shadows, and Eileen... she was fine, actually.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time. Filling one lobby took five minutes. I almost put it back, but stopped. There was one more thing I had to do.

As the floor opened, I went to my "contacts" — whatever that meant — and changed Annie's name to Eileen.

_This is great, _I thought, _I'm fine with her being Eileen. Happy, even. Rose gave her a chance, and she'll take it. _

_Who she was isn't who she is._

* * *

**Lookee here, another transition chapter. I needed to have something before the next.**

**Anyway, the next chapter, which will more likely than not be in two weeks, is one I have been waiting to write for a long time.**


	22. Patterns

**Hello and welcome to the longest chapter I've ever written, being about four thousand words long.**

* * *

I was forming a rivalry with Masked Mayhem's Dualies user. Whenever we saw each other, it became an unexpectedly intense fight for those extra few seconds on the battlefield. I still didn't know which one Dualies was. I only knew that Gemini was the Charger.

We made eye contact again, me and Dualies. They were on the Tower, and I was at spawn or whatever it was called.

Moray Towers was, in my humble opinion, not the best Tower Control stage. It all depended on who had the good Charger.

And in this case, it was Masked Mayhem.

I kicked off the wall, shooting myself forward as I fell straight for the Tower. Somehow, I splatted Dualies while in midair and landed in the little splash of ink I made. But as soon as I did, the Roller came out of nowhere and flattened me.

Yay.

Someone else took Dualies' place, and the tower kept sliding along, closer to their goal on our side. Another swam up the nearby wall, and as they leapt out of it, they opened fire, catching both Eileen and Jacob in the volley.

And with that, they won. Another knockout. Again.

Unsurprised, I jumped to the spawn point. When I landed, I saw four squid shaped silhouettes in the distance, all flying away in the same direction. Masked Mayhem just left the battlefield instead of returning to the lobby.

Of course, they didn't have to return. The system already had the match results, so it didn't care where they were.

As far as I knew, they still had a perfect win streak. The best advantage they had was what I assumed was communication. They didn't talk or anything mid-battle, it was like they could read each other's minds.

It couldn't be headsets, their ears were all bare, and that was illegal, anyway. That was the main way I could tell they were all Inklings; their pointed ears were a dead giveaway.

I climbed out of the camera lens floor thing back into the cleanest lobby in the building. That wasn't saying much, though. There were still weird clumps of dirt in the corners and extra spray paint on the walls.

"There's no way..." Eileen said. She had one hand on her head and a wide-eyed look that told me she realized... something. "I feel like I've fought them before..."

Before saying anything, I shot a glance at Jacob. He looked just as confused as I was, so no, this wasn't an Octrope thing.

Eileen looked up at me, dropping her hand back down. "N-no, forget it. It's nothing."

My phone said it was five minutes until midnight, so I didn't have time to press her. "Fine. Uh, I gotta go now. Uh. See you."

"Bye," Jacob muttered. He was still looking suspiciously at Eileen, who was trying her best to look natural. It wasn't working. She was fidgeting a lot.

I suppressed a grin, then backed out of the lobby.

_That's Eileen, _I thought. _Amazing..._

* * *

From the bench, the stars were pretty much the same as they were the night before. Not in position, but in quality. Not as good as from the forest, but better than Inkopolis Square.

I couldn't get what Eileen said out of my mind. Why did it take her this many matches to feel that? She said she felt like she'd fought Masked Mayhem before, and judging by the reaction, it wasn't from a previous battle with them.

But for some reason, I felt the same way, but only about Dualies. There was something familiar about their fighting style. They really liked to kick off of walls.

I checked my phone again. Rose was running late. Somehow, I wasn't surprised. I guess she struck me as the kind of person to do that.

Sighing boredly, I dropped my phone back into my pocket and fell into the bench.

The jewel of the sky — the moon — was full. I still didn't know why there was a moon cycle, but it seemed to add another layer of prettiness to the scene. Even when it wasn't there, it would reappear again. The moon was reliable. Every month, it would be full again, then disappear like it was never there to begin with.

I looked down at the ocean. The reflection of everything was there, too, but it wavered in the constant motion. Sure, the sea was nice, too, but it couldn't compare to the static image above me. I smiled faintly at the sky.

A boat's horn caught my attention. On the other side of the bridge was a small ship that looked run-down and neglected. There was a torn umbrella on the back, and several areas needed repainting.

The weirdest part was that it had the Grizzco logo on it, painted on one part of what was left of the umbrella.

It took me a while, but when it halfway across, I suddenly realized the boat was coming to me. The horn sounded again, and it swayed violently to one side. When it righted itself again, it kept going.

That wasn't Rose, was it?

Of course it was, who else would be in there?

As the boat chugged right next to the bench, it dropped an anchor on its far side. Another piece of the umbrella fell off and rode the breeze out to the ocean.

A door on it's near side slammed open, and who would it be other than Rose?

She looked up frantically. "Yes, it's clear!" Then she looked up at me standing, confused about the boat. "Uh, I mean, ta-da!" She jumped to the front of the boat and held her arms out, as if she was presenting it to me as a gift.

I stared at her. She was waiting for me to react. "I'm not... sure what you're trying to do," I admitted.

"Get in the boat. Please," she said playfully. She was still smiling, which didn't do much to help the really creepy thing she just said. Whatever she was planning, she was excited about it.

* * *

I could appreciate the ocean, but that didn't mean I liked being on it. Every time it did as little as shake, I had this weird feeling that another murder statue would rise out of it and start blasting everything again.

"Sorry about the really bad ship I brought," Rose apologized. She was in front of the controls, facing away from me. "But One and Two wouldn't let me use their yachts, and this is best thing I own."

"O-Okay," I stammered from behind her, on a long seat in the back. "H-hey, there isn't anything dangerous about this, right?"

"Nope!" she sang. "Captain Jaqueline has it all under control!"

I stared at the back of her head. Didn't she just say-

"Wait, no. I'm not a captain. Don't start calling me captain, please."

Yeah. That. "Got it..."

I fumbled around to pull the communicator out of my pocket. I wanted to tell her I used to be Agent 8, but it feel right to say it right then.

Since I couldn't see anything outside from where I was, I took to unlocking the communicator. Rose couldn't see it, she was focused on the water.

But p there was nothing to do on it other than reread things I already knew about, so I shoved it back in my pocket, next to the phone.

"Wanna know how I got this rust bucket of a boat?" Rose chimed. She hit another button and spun around in her own seat. I still didn't know what any of the controls did, so maybe that was the autopilot button.

Rust bucket. How reassuring.

The boat kept moving forward. I was almost positive she was breaking some water safety law... or something. "Sure," I murmured.

She smiled even wider. "Alright, so one day the captain — not me, alright? — asked me, One, and Two to raid Grizzco, 'cause at the time, that Akash dude ran it, remember him? So basically we all went in, pretended to be there for Salmon Run, but he knew that we weren't there for that, so he took all of us to some tiny island and attacked us using this ship right here." Her hands were flying everywhere as she invented hand signals for everything she was saying.

"I lured a few missiles towards another boat, and that lowered the shield on this one. Two used a Splashdown on the deck and broke every weapon on it. Octarians still run Grizzco, but none of them are like, evil. It turned out that the weapons were for emergency defense if the Salmon Run goes really bad.

"And there's no cheap way to fix the weapons, so they just gave me this one. All of the actual movement and floating things still work, so I use it from time to time."

I shifted in my seat. We were on NSS talk again. Everything she just said was under the assumption I didn't know a thing about it. "How often do you mean by 'time to time?'"

She whirled back around to look back at the controls. "...this is my second time using it. The first being to get back to shore after Two ripped everything apart."

"How do you talk with each other? Like, now. If something was to attack the ship, how would you get the message out to the rest of the team?"

Somehow, I could sense that Rose's face lit up from the other side of her head. "Glad you asked! Geez, I should like Sheldon... I'd use this thing! 'Course, if something attacked us out here, we'd be utterly screwed, but don't worry about that." From her own pocket, she retrieved a small, phone-like rectangle. There it was. Her own communicator.

After showing me that brief glance, she dropped it back in. She was still facing the water, so I reached for my own.

Rose continued on about the possibility of something attacking. "The only thing that could attack out here is the Piranha, but that's been missing for-"

"Hey," I said through the speaker on the communicator. "I have one, too."

I watched as Rose tensed in front of me. She came to the realization that she just heard _my_ voice, again, but from a different direction.

And again, she fumbled her hand around in her pocket before almost accidentally throwing the communicator backwards. From where I was, I could only see a white "8" on a black background on the screen.

"Y- You're Eight!?" she yelped, staring at the screen with disbelief. "That's been bugging me for ages!"

"N-not anymore," I blurted. "I'm not... Eight... or whatever."

"Okay!" she continued, turning to face me again. "But still! That was you the whole time! Three said... Three never told me _that_ part! So if you're... were... Eight, then... actually, this doesn't change much, does it? There's no Five, or Six, or Seven..."

It did not change much. She could talk freely about NSS business to me, but she was already doing that.

Somehow, I did not regret saying that. I'd been avoiding attention for half a year, but Rose's reaction felt nice. I knew she wasn't going to turn me in.

Not that there was anyone left to turn me in to. Octavio's been pretty much gone since the Flash.

"It was only a title your captain gave me," I said. "I got rid of it later. He really likes to say 'Agent.'"

"Tell me about it," Rose sighed. I did not tell her about it.

I left the room in silence and kept her to herself so she could process the whole "Sky being Eight before" thing. I drifted back into my own mind. I tended to do that when it was quiet.

_I wonder what Eileen and Jacob are doing._

My life had been crazy, even ignoring everything that might have happened before the six month cutoff. Literally the first substantial thing I could remember was shooting an NSS member. Then I spent, like, three or four weeks trapped in a subway _with_ the NSS, apparently saved the world, then... for the most part, the next few months were pretty normal.

Then the Flash happened, then Sharktown... all with the NSS playing huge roles. And then Annie became Eileen... while an NSS member was there.

Ugh.

I tried to cut ties with them, but it looked like I'd failed. I didn't mind spending time with Rose, though, because apparently she and Agent 4 were different people. Metaphorically, of course.

"Just to be clear, you named yourself, right?" Rose asked, looking over her shoulder. Her pink hair whipped the air.

That was a weird way to put it, but it was true. "Yeah?" I said questioningly.

"Perfect," she said. "Give me a sec."

I felt the momentum change. I couldn't see it, but the boat was slowing down.

"Sorry," Rose said again. "This thing stops really weirdly."

I didn't feel a thing out of the ordinary. But this _was _the first ship I'd been on.

"Alright, give me another second." She shut off the boat entirely, turning off the lights as well. I think she left one thing on, though, but it was probably the balance weights.

Rose hopped off of her seat and went to the door leading outside. She opened it, left, then closed it. For a short moment, I could hear the gentle breeze and the waves.

The ocean didn't exist underground either. Neither did natural wind.

I still didn't know what she was doing, taking me all the way out here. At that point, I kind of just accepted that she was trying to impress me with something.

The side door opened again, and Rose peeked her head in. "Close your eyes," she whispered.

I chose to humor her. I did as she asked, shutting my eyes silently. I felt her grab my wrist and lead me outside.

As I crossed the doorframe, the wind started hitting the side of my face. The waves got louder, and the gentle tipping of the boat seemed a bit less gentle.

But with her leading me, I felt fine.

Slowly, she pulled me somewhere else. It reminded me of the day before, when she took me to the bench, but this time, it was a lot more peaceful, and I couldn't see.

The air felt fresh out in the ocean. I was in an open area, I could tell. The air was cool, but not too chilly.

"You're already tilting your head back," she whispered. Saying anything louder than that would feel wrong, breaking the serenity of the open air. "Eh, it's fine. Look up."

I took a deep breath. I don't know what I expected. I don't know what I was supposed to expect. Why, at midnight, did I let her take me to the middle of the ocean?

The light swaying of the ship became more relaxing. The breeze weakened, got a bit quieter, and the lapping of the waves, a bit louder. Before I opened my eyes, I took a moment to appreciate the sounds. Even if I was blind, I could still get something out of this trip. I don't know what I was doing, hesitating and leaving the surprise for later.

By then, I knew that Rose brought me here to look at the sky. Maybe even some stargazing. It just... I don't know. I needed to feel ready. I wasn't surely how exactly it would look. What would change? Does it look similar at all? Or completely different?

Once more, I took a deep breath. Rose wasn't pressing me to go ahead, but eventually, I did. Opened my eyes. Except I was looking at the deck.

She was standing next to me, weight on one leg. She was facing forward herself, maybe didn't even know I wasn't staring upwards with her. One last time, I took another breath.

And when I looked up, the sky seemed to look back.

I don't blame any Octoling for keeping me — the old me — from this. If there was one thing that I was sure didn't change with the memory suppression, it was my admiration of the night sky.

But the old me never knew that if she looked up on the surface, this is what she'd see. I don't think anyone did. Any Octoling, that is. Travel between Kettles was strictly forbidden at night unless it was for a mission, and even during the day, only the elites could. The elites, and Octavio.

He must've seen the night sky. I wondered if he knew it was better from the ocean, with the open air and the waves. I wondered if Eileen did. She must like it too, right? The sky, after a childhood spent with a never ending ceiling.

Unlike her, though, I had the freedom to change my name. Freedom. Knowing nothing set me free from the past.

Everything around me seemed to fall away, even myself. All that was left was a pair of eyes and the distant glimmer of stars.

There were more of them. Stars. Why were there more? The blanket seemed fuller, there were stars everywhere. There were the ones that were always there, the brightest ones, but there were smaller, dimmer stars scattered between them. Like they were holding it together. Like a web.

There was one part I couldn't stop focusing on, the part that looked like a scar, a weird cut or tear in the sky. I couldn't tell if there were just a bunch of stars there, or some odd illusion, or something else entirely. That was never there before, was it? That purplish fade, full of tiny dots of light.

This, I could tell, was completely new.

I realized I was holding my breath, out of fear that the slightest touch would shatter the image forever. Reality rebuilt itself around me. I was still standing on the deck, the boat was still rocking, Rose was next to me. I slowly exhaled.

"Is it always like this?" I asked Rose, still in a whisper. "Out here..."

Rose turned to look at me, but I kept looking up. "Pretty much," she said. "Not only here. Anywhere without any other lights around would have the same look."

That, I didn't know, but I couldn't process her answer. My mind was preoccupied. I breathed out as a response.

I didn't know what I was feeling. It wasn't happiness, fear, anything I could identify. Awe, maybe. Just awe. For a few more minutes, I stood there in silence, swaying forward and back with the ship.

Then Rose started telling me another story. "Recently, I found some ancient human records underground," she said. "I don't know how they lasted this long, but there were audio files, too. It's all saved on Three's computer."

I nodded lightly.

"Nobody's ever found something like this before," she laughed to herself quietly. "The humans saw patterns in the stars," she whispered, just barely louder than the wind. I nodded, but kept my eyes facing up. "Sit down, lemme show you something."

I didn't want to sit down. That would take me ever so slightly farther from the sky.

_But no, that's nothing, _I told myself. _It's no distance at all._

Hesitantly, I took a step back on the deck, kneeled, then sat. Rose was already down, using one hand behind her to support herself. The other was on her lap. She was facing the other direction, away from the scar, so I turned around to face the same way.

She took that free hand and pulled us together. Our faces were really close, our heads were touching. I pulled my hair to the side so she wouldn't have to deal with it.

"See that really bright one there?" she whispered, pointing at a star. It was so bright, I found it immediately. "The humans called that one Polaris... or the North Star." She started to trace her finger away from the star in a curved motion, stopping for a short moment whenever she hit another. It ended with a cup-like figure on the other end. "They called that shape Ursa Minor," she finished.

_Polaris. Ursa Minor. _

The names sounded foreign, but in a specific way I felt like I'd heard before. The thought slipped away before I could pursue it.

This was not what I had envisioned this outing to end up like. But I was enjoying it, a lot. Tracing the stars was a different way of looking up. It was more methodical, more focused. It gave each cluster its own meaning.

Rose laughed again. "Congratulations, you're one of the six people on the planet to know that. Here, turn around. I'll show you another one," she let go of me, letting me spin around with her.

I said nothing. I didn't think there was anything to say. Right now, she was the teacher, and I was the student. How long had it been since I was taught anything?

Again, she pulled us together, and I pulled my hair the other way.

"That big red one, they called it Antares." It was near the scar, a red dot whole worlds away. "This one's a bit more complicated. There's one claw here..." She drew another path with her finger, going to one star, then another, and then one more. "And another here..." Then she did it again, also from the red star. Antares, was it?

For once in my life, I found myself only looking at one part of the sky at a time. Before then, I always darted between stars or clouds, or let go of my focus so I could look at it all at once. Like I said, each cluster had its own meaning, its own name, its own significance.

I was right when I thought of it as a web, with smaller stars holding the brighter ones together.

"And then a tail," Rose continued. From Antares, she traced a hook-like shape that reached into the scar. "That one's called..." She trailed off. For a moment, she pulled her hand back. The finger she was using to paint the path fell. "It's called... Scorpius. Sometimes, Scorpio."

_Antares, _I repeated in my mind. _Scorpio..._

That was enough for me to tear myself away from the stars and stare at Rose. I couldn't see her, only her silhouette. "Scorpio..."

"Y'know. I guess that was their word for 'scorpion,' right?" Her voice, as quiet as it was, still told me what she was hiding.

I was one of the six people to know these few things, huh? The four from the NSS, their captain, and me.

And Scorpio...

"Is that you?" I asked. Why I needed to ask, I don't know. "Dualies?"

"Is that what you call me? Dualies? It's Scorpio." We still weren't getting any louder than a whisper. "Two claws? Get it?"

Eileen felt like she'd fought them before. She was right. She had.

And I had fought Rose before, or Scorpio, or Agent 4, whatever it was. In the training camp after the Flash, we had sparred several times as practice.

The revelation that Rose was Scorpio — and by extension, the NSS was Masked Mayhem — didn't surprise me as much as it really should have. Between Annie being Eileen and that, the Eileen part was more... jarring. At the time, of course.

It all went back to who knew who was who.

"You really like to kick off walls," I told her.

"It works, doesn't it?" Even in the darkness, I could tell she was flashing one of her signature smiles.

"I'll find a counter to that eventually..."

"Don't you want me to point out more of these?" Rose said. Because of course she was changing the subject.

I knew that, and yet I sill agreed.

_Gemini, Leo, Taurus._

_And Scorpio._

Which one was Gemini? It wasn't Agent 3, I knew he used regular shooters. So that made him Leo.

Gemini was the Charger, and Taurus was the Roller. One of them was Agent 1, the other Agent 2. I still didn't know which was which.

But they weren't here, so they didn't matter. Scorpio wasn't here, either. Just Rose and me, staring at the stars.

"That one's called Ursa Major," she whispered. That one was really complex.

What if I was one of these patterns? Did humans ever see something like me up there?

No... I wouldn't be one pattern. I'm Sky, I'm _the _sky. Scarred but healed, incomplete but complete. Yeah, that sounds right.

"Sky. My name is Sky..." I whispered to myself, so quietly that even Rose didn't hear.

Nothing else felt right.

* * *

**Remember that chapter with the protest that ended up being longer than I anticipated? Yeah, so this chapter is that, but even more so. **

**Makes sense, since I've wanted to write this one for ages.**

**But can you guys believe I've never actually seen the night sky without any light pollution? And I still tried to write about it? I need to get on that sometime.**

**Anyway, one last thing. Another hiatus... sorry.**

**I need to get on my other story's rewriting and get the future plot straightened out for this one. Don't know how long this hiatus is gonna last...**

**But I'll be back, I promise.**


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